Blood Drops
by mrsgaarayaoilover1995
Summary: Gaara X OC A girl runs away from her past. She meets up with some friends and falls in love, but her past starts to catch up with her. Can she defeat the evil forces out to get her or will she fail and lose everything? Rated for later Chapters
1. Meeting Ka Ryu

I've just made a story that i've had in my head for a whie now. Hope you enjoy. ^-^

DISCLAIMER!! I do not own or work for Naruto, therefore i do not own any of teh characters in this story...except for Lynne, i own her.

Chapter 1

Blood Rain

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The snow was falling on the quiet Village Hidden in the Rain. Everyone was home, tucked tight in bed, sitting on the couch watching TV, or sitting by the firelight reading a book. But not me, I had no home, no friends, no loved ones. If anyone saw me on the streets they would look the other way or run and hide.

I was not ugly, no, that is not why they ran. I was not mean, or evil for that matter, but everyone thought I was. That is why they run… because they fear me. I wouldn't hurt or harm any of them, but they do not care. They only know that I am a monster, someone they should fear.

But I do not care, they have always treated me like this. A few of them even try to kill me, but fail miserably. They always end up dead on the side of the street with a kunai in the back of the head, limbs cut off, or most of the time, scorch marks all over their body.

I try to let out my anger in a different way, always on dummies, trees, buildings, and sometimes on rare occasions, stray animals. I don't like killing innocent animals, but sometimes they try to attack me. I love animals, but animals don't love me.

So now I am sitting here, on the top of the tallest building, looking down at the sleeping village. Oh, how I envy them. They all have a warm home, even the homeless have a barrel with a fire to warm them through the night.

Why do I keep on living like this, freezing on cold winter nights, starving for days? Why don't I just quit? Just give up and die? Because _It _won't let me. Believe me, I've tried, more than once. Who is it that won't let me die? Well, if I told you then it would ruin my life's story.

It all started when I was born. My mother and father were very happy. My mother had just given birth to a happy, healthy, baby girl. Having being able to finally leave the hospital for the first time since I was conceived they wanted to celebrate the occasion, so they walked to the nearest restaurant. After they got done eating it was dark out, they started walking home, when a gang of ten stopped them in their tracks. Even though I was only four days old I could still tell when there was trouble nearby. Mom and dad tried to run away from them but they were too fast and powerful, they over powered them before they could even scream for help.

They killed my mother and my father right there, but when they were finished with them, they soon turned their sights on me. The crying baby, wrapped up in a hospital blanked, lying on the ground. They thought that it would be easy. Why not? It was only a baby, no more than a couple of days old. It couldn't fight back, it could barely lift its own arms. But they were wrong.

No sooner had the leader lifted the sword, getting ready to strike, had the baby stopped crying. She started to glow, a shade of deep, rich red. That stopped the attacker, he looked at her with a look of astonishment. "What the F-" was all he got out before he died. _It _came out of nowhere. Going too fast that all you could see was just a black blur. The remaining 9 members of the gang were picked off, one by one. One of the members seen what was happening to the others and tried to stop _It_ but failed. He could only stand, and watch as his team mates died, till he was the only one standing. He looked at the baby on the ground, she still had a red glow to the pale skin. She was looking right at him, they looked into each other's eyes, seeing into the other's soul.

"It's you, isn't it. You're the one who's doing this, aren't you? YOU'RE A MOSTER!" Those were the last words he ever said before _It_ killed him.

The baby was still glowing and laying on the ground, but was now crying, tears rolling down her soft, pink cheeks. "**Don't cry little one, I'm here to protect you,**" said the demonic voice. Out of the shadows came a Dragon-like creature with pure black armored scales, and blood red eyes, and giant, white claws and fangs that had drops of red on them due to the blood of the now dead gang.

"**My name is Ka Ryu, I can tell when you grow up you will be strong willed and very smart and cunning. I love your spirit, it's so free and strong. So I have sealed myself in your body. I have sworn to protect you, to make sure that nobody can hurt you,**" when he was done talking he walked over to the baby, that had now stopped crying, and picked her up by the blanket with his teeth and carried her to an allied-way and set her down. He curled up next to the now sleeping baby to keep her warm threw the night.

Ever since that day Ka Ryu watched over me while I grew up, making sure nobody tried to hurt me. No longer than a week later had everyone in the village knew what had happened that night. Some pity me, some cared for me, some were even angry at me for killing them, but all of them are scared of me. Mothers and fathers tell their kids to stay clear of the evil girl that walk the streets.

That is how I lived my life, even now at the age of seven I am still treated that way. Like a Monster. Sitting at the top of this building, even now, I have realized that I am no longer welcomed here in the Village Hidden in the Rain. Now I must move on to a new village. Nobody will care, nobody will miss me. If anything, they will be happy that I am now gone.

I jumped from the building to the village floor with ease, and start walking to the village gates. Not stopping for anything, never looking back. With a smirk on my face I leave the Village behind me. "Good-bye… forever."

With that said I run off into the night, further and further away from the village. My confinement since the day I was born. I am sure that when everyone finds out that I am gone they will celebrate for days, crying tears of joy and yelling, "Hurray! The evil girl is now gone!"

My name is Lynne and this is my life's story.

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Hope you liked the story, i know i loved writing it. Please Review, I always love reviews. Don't worrie though, Gaara will show up soon. probebly not in teh next chapter though, thats where I indroduce the Chunin Exams. ^^

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	2. The Chunin Exams

Here is teh next Chapter to Blood Drops. Hope you enjoy!

DISCLAIMER!! I do not own or work for Naruto, I do not own any of the characters in teh story except for Lynne.

Chapter 2

The Chunin Exams

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It has been 5 years since that night that I ran away from my home village. The Village Hidden in the Leaf has taken me in on three conditions. 1, nobody, other than the Hokage and the council, must know about Ka Ryu. 2, I can't kill anyone. And 3, I have to enroll as a ninja at the Ninja Academe.

I agreed to the conditions happily, I knew that if someone, anyone, found out about Ka Ryu then it would end up like the Village Hidden in the Rain all over again. I didn't want to kill anyone, so that rule was easy to agree to. And I've always wanted to be a ninja, but nobody at the Village Hidden in the Rain would let me.

Soon after enrolling at the Ninja Academe I started to get some friends. One of them was a boy named Naruto, he is just like me. Everyone thinks he's a monster because of the Nine-tailed demon fox that is trapped inside of him. We meet one day at the play ground, I was playing with my friends, Sakura and Ino, when I saw him all alone at the swing sets. I stopped what I was doing and went over to the poor, sad, lonely boy.

"Hey," I said when I reached him. "Mind if I join you?"

"Aren't you afraid of me?" The blonde asked.

"No, why? Should I be?" I asked him.

"Everyone else is, why not you?"

"Because," I said smiling, "I'm not like everyone else. What's your name?"

"Naruto"

"Naruto, huh? Well that's a nice name. I like it" I said, smiling wider.

He just looked at me, confused. "Your weird, you know that?"

"I know," we both laughed for a while till I said "So why is everyone scared of you?"

That made him stop laughing, he looked at me, then at the ground. "Because everyone thinks I'm a monster."

"…Well I don't think you're a monster," I said, making him snap his head up to look at me. I smiled at him. "I think you're really nice."

"you do?"

"Yes, I think me and you are going to be great friends."

"Friends?"

"Friends," I said, smiling even wider, and he smiled back at me. I sat next to him by the tree while he sat on the swing. We talked some more about what we liked and what we wanted to be when we grow up. I said I wanted to be loved by everyone, while he said he wants to be Hokage. I told him that I would help him, in any way possible, to achieve is life's dream.

Soon after I started to make even more friends, like Sasuke, Rock Lee, Tenten, Neji, Shikamaru, Choji, Hinata, Shino, Kiba, and Akamaru. We would all hang out sometimes and eat at the ramen shop or go somewhere and train.

I am now 14, I have long blonde hair that flow down to my lower back, which I like to keep it in a pony-tail so it will stay out of my face when I'm training, fighting, or sleeping. I like to wear a black jacket with the zipper left open and a dark red shirt underneath with a black 'Dragon' kanji on it, but nobody ever asked why. The jacket is long-sleeved, but the sleeves are always an inch too long so I cut a hole in them for my thumbs. If anyone ever saw me without my jacket on they would see a tattoo-like birthmark on my arm that is shaped like a dragon coiled around my bicep. I have black, short shorts on with a headband tied loosely around my neck.

Today is the day that we all graduate from the academe and everyone is excited. Iruka- sensei says that today he is going to tell us who our partners are. Of course I snuck in and helped Naruto out by partnering him up with Sakura, but I was surprised that Sasuke was in the group, didn't see that one coming. Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji were put into a group while Hinata, Shino, and Kiba are in another group. Iruka-sensei didn't know where to put me so for now I'm in Team 8 with Kurenai-sensei.

I don't need as much training as the rest, and even if I did I'm not going to let them know my moves. So during the day I help Hinata with her training and at night I do my training.

"Why don't you train with us today, Lynne?" asked Kurenai-sensei, one day on the training field.

"Well, I'm helping Hinata with her training."

"But you've been helping her with her training all week, why not work on your training?"

"Um…okay," I really didn't want to train in front of anyone, because I fear that they would notice that my jutsu's are not normal, so I decided to start with one of my most simplest jutsu.

Doing some hand signs the team had stopped their training and are now looking at me. When I finished the hand signs I lifted my hand out in front of me, palm held up, and said "Dragon Sword Jutsu," and a light flashed in my hand. When it died down a sword appeared in my now closed fist. The sword was very strong and had a shiny black color to it because it was mad out of Ka Ryu's scales. The hilt of the sword is also black, but was darker, and had a swirl-like design to it. At the butt of the sword, imbedded in the hilt is a blood red jewel that most would say is a ruby. Let them believe what they want to believe, because if they knew what it really was they would surly try, with all their might, to kill me.

With the Dragon Sword now in my hand I turn to the dummy in the middle of the battle field. I jumped forward, spin in the air, and sliced the dummy in half, and landed in front of it. I turned around and sliced the other dummies with ease, till only one stood. I threw the sword at the dummy and it cut the head right off. As soon as the sword landed in the tree, behind the dummy, it vanished in a beautiful show of dark light.

I tuned to face my team, they all had a look of surprise on their face. After what seemed like an eternity, but was only a few seconds, everyone started to walk towards me, except for Kurenai-sensei.

_I knew it, they want to kill me now before I kill them. But I would never hurt them. _I got into defense mode but they just kept walking towards me. When they reached me Kiba and Hinata hugged me while smiling, Shino just stood in front of me with his thumb held up.

"Who knew you had it in yah?" Kiba yelled in my ear.

"I knew she could do it," Hinata said shyly, still hugging me.

"I knew she had a lot of chakra," Shino said, lowering his hand back down.

"Um… Thanks you guys. Can you let go now, I can't breathe," they let go of me and stood back with Shino. Kurenai-sensei walked over to me and put her hand on my shoulder.

"See, Lynne, it's easy," said Kurenai-sensei. She then turned to the team, "come on class, we need to train some more. I have some good news, the Chunin Exams are coming up soon."

"What is the Chunin Exams?" asked Hinata.

"The Chunin Exams are a set of tasks that a Genin can complete to become a Chunin," I explained.

"Exactly! So, who's up to the task?" exclaimed Kurenai-sensei.

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Hope you liked, Gaara will show up in the Next chapter. So please bere with me. ^^

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	3. The RedHeaded Boy

Hey everyone! The next Chapter is up in the story Blood Drop. Enjoy! ^-^

DISCLAIMER!!! I do not own or work for Naruto, Therefore i do not own any of teh characters in this story... Excpet for Lynn ethat is. ^^

Chapter 3

The Red-Headed Boy

Ever since Kurenai-sensei asked us to join the Chunin Exams we have been training our butts off. Well… Shino, Kiba, Akamaru, and Hinata have been training, I just help out when I can. I don't train with them still, I'm too afraid that they might get scared and run when they find out where my moves and Jutsu's are acually from Ka Ryu's chakra and power. So I've been training at night seeing how I don't need to sleep that much. I mean, I still need to sleep, but not that much, only a couple hours of sleep a day.

The Chunin Exams are coming up soon so I thought it would be smart to go to the weapons store and stock up on kunai and shuriken and maybe a few paper bombs. I was just leaving my house and was on my way to the store when I saw Naruto and Sakura with a little boy, another man with purple marker on his face and a girl with four pig-tails and a fan strapped to her back. The man with maker on his face had the little boy by the front of his shirt.

I'm not a person that would interfere in other peoples businesses but picking on kids is just wrong. It looked like I would have to butt in because Naruto and Sakura weren't doing anything to stop him. I walked over by Naruto and looked at the boy with the kid in his hand.

"What are you doing?" I asked with menace dripping in every word that escaped my mouth, which made Naruto jump a foot in the air. He was just about to yell at me when the man spoke up.

"Who are you?" He asked, not even dropping the boy.

"I asked you a question first so don't be rude," I smirked at him. "Now, I'll give you 5 seconds to drop the kid,"

"Or what?" He asked smiling at me. "What can you do to me? I'm stronger than you weak Leaf Shinobi, ha."

Before I could even plot his demise a pebble came out of nowhere and hit the man's hand, making him drop the kid. The man looked up, holding his hand to his chest with the other, and tried to find out where it came from.

"Pfft," I looked up at the tree where the noise came from and seen Sasuke standing on a branch in the tree.

"Hey, Sasuke!" yelled Naruto while Sasuke jumped down from the tree

"You're going to pay for that, Runt!" yelled the man.

"You're all a bunch of idiots," came a new voice. I looked up at the tree to see who it was. There was a boy hanging upside-down from a branch. The boy was no older than me, with blood red hair and a gourd on his back. He had dark rings around his turquoise eyes that indicated that he didn't sleep. He had a kanji on the left side of his forehead that said 'love'. His voice was deep and intimidating, but I could see the loneliness in his eyes. _He's just like me._

He jumped down from the tree and landed next to the girl with the fan. He looked at Sasuke, then at me. We held that gaze for awhile till the boy with the marker on his face spoke up, "S-sorry, but they started it."

"No we didn't!" yelled Naruto, right in my ear.

"Doesn't matter, we're leaving. Now," said the red-head, he turned around and started walking away.

"What is your name?" asked Sasuke, which made the red-head stop in his tracks.

"Gaara, what is your name?"

"Sasuke"

Gaara then turned to me, and then started to walk off. The blonde girl smiled at us and said, "My name is Tamari, and this is my brother, Kankuro."

When she was done with the introduction she turned and walked off with her brother and Gaara. Naruto stepped forward with his fist raised, "Hey, don't you want to know my name?"

"No," the red-head simply stated.

"Well you should. The name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm going to be the next Hokage," Naruto raised his hand and gave a thumbs up sign while flashing a smile. "Believe it!"

When the trio finally walked out of sight Sakura spoke up, "What was that all about?"

"I don't know, and I don't care. I'm out of here, see you guys later," I said, walking off in the other direction.

"Wait up Lynne!" Naruto ran in front of me, making me stop. "Why don't you come with me and get some ramen? I'm starving."

"I can't, I was just about to go stock up on my weapons before the Chunin Exams."

"Can I come? And then when we're done we can get some ramen. Please?" Naruto was looking at me with his puppy-dog eyes. I couldn't say no.

I sighed, "Alright, but stay out of the way and don't break anything while we're in there."

"Yay!" Naruto jumped into the air, giving it an air punch, and started walking with me to the weapon's shop.

When I thought that I was all stocked up on my weapons Naruto and I headed to the Ramen shop, where we stuffed ourselves with pork-fried ramen.

I told Naruto that I was full and wanted to go home. We said our good-byes and went our separate ways. I lied, of course. I just wanted to get away and start training some more before the Chunin Exams started.

I had only started training when I heard someone in a tree to my left. I grabbed a shuriken that I had just bought today and threw it at the stranger. I heard a clinging noise with told me that the shuriken had hit something.

"You shouldn't be out this late at night." Came the same deep voice that I had heard earlier today. The red-head named Gaara jumped down from the tree. He held my shuriken in his right hand, but there was no blood on it, and he had no wound that I could see of. _How could that be? He doesn't have a wound. But I could have sworn that it hit something, and I never miss._

I then noticed that the gourd was open and there was sand that was retreating back inside. _So that is how he did it. He can manipulate the sand to do what he wants. He must have used it to block my attack._

Gaara started walking towards me. I don't know why but I didn't get into defense mode like I usually would. Call it instincts, but I could tell that he didn't mean any harm. When Gaara was only two feet away from me he held out his hand that held my shuriken. "Here, I think you want this back. You might need this later on."

"Gee, Thanks Gaara." I went to go grab my shuriken back from Gaara. When I did my fingers brushed his fingers just slightly. The sudden contact with the red-head sent a jolt of lightning through my fingers, up my arm, and down my spine. Sending chills throughout my whole body. _Who exactly is this boy?_

I looked up to see Gaara looking at me in the eyes, I stared back. I could see the pain and hurt in his eyes, those beautiful eyes of his. I looked even further into his eyes and saw sorrow mixed with confusion.

_He's just like me, when I was living in the Village Hidden in the Rain. _

I don't know how long we just stood there, looking into each other's eyes. It was probably only a couple of minutes but it seemed like an eternity.

The connection was finally broken when he cleared his throat, "Well, I should get going, it's getting late out."

"You don't seem like the type to sleep," I said with a smirk.

"Yeah, well, I don't. But it seems like you do."

"Not really, I'm usually up half the night training. I don't need that much sleep."

"What's your name?"

I blinked, "Why? You didn't seem interested about me earlier today."

"Well, that was before you threw a shuriken at my head."

I gave out a small chuckle and continued to smirk at him, "The name is Lynne Rizu, but you can just call me Lynne."

Gaara gave a soft Chuckle and began to walk away, "See you at the Chunin Exams Lynne," he said just before he disappeared in a cloud of sand.

I walked home absent-minded while replaying today's events over again. _Man, I had a weird day today. I wonder what the Chunin Exams are going to be like? _When I got home I changed into my black silk nightgown that go down to my knees, brushed my teeth, set my headband on the nightstand that stood next to my bed, and layed down. I kept thinking about Gaara. _W__hy do I feel light-headed every time I'm around him or think about him? _I turn over and went into a deep sleep.

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Well, i hope you enjoyed chapter 3, i'm working on chapter 4 now. I just winged the whole meeting Gaara in the end, I thought that it was too short so I added a sceen. I had to get him to find out her name some how. I was originally going to have him find out after he killed those three ninja in the forest of Death (Hint: that's why I put her in with team 8) but it just didn't seem right. ^^


	4. The Forest of Death

Hope you likey. Sorry it took me so long to update. Right now I'd say something like "I had alot of homework to do" but that's a lie...well not completely. I did have homework but i never do it. ^^ Yet i'm still passing all my classes with a 2.66 GPA. lol.

DISCLAIMER!!! I do not own or work for Naruto. Therefore I do not own any of teh charaters in this story... Except for Lynne Rizu and the three unimprotant ninja.

Enjoy!! ^-^

Chapter 4

Forest of Death

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Today is the day of the Chunin Exams and all of the Genin are gathering in the school training building. The teacher had a scar on the side of his face and was wearing a black trench coat.

"Alright class! Start your tests," came his booming voice.

I picked up my pencil and looked at my test. I could hear a few groans of protest as the students found out that the test was a bunch of math questions. _This isn't that hard. Math is probably the only subject that I don't suck at._ I started filling out my answers one by one. I knew that over half of the class was cheating but I didn't care. _Go ahead and cheat, let's see how far that will get you with me. _

I lifted my finger to my lips and whispered "Secret Jutsu," so now if anyone wanted to look at my answers all they would see is a blank piece of paper. I smiled to myself as I finished my test and turned it over to wait for the rest of the class. _This is just too easy._

"Alright class, turn your papers over and I'll collect them." When he was all done collecting the tests he walked to the front of the classroom. He then asked the last question. After half of the class had left, the teacher told us that we had passed the test.

Then the strangest thing happened, a crazy woman jumped in through the window and landed next to the teacher. "Hello class, my name is Anko-sensei. And I'll be your teacher for the second part of the Chunin Exams. Meet me in one hour at the Forest of Death's gates. Class dismissed."

With that everyone filed out of the classroom. I meet up with Hinata, Kiba, Akamaru, and Shino in the hallway. "Hey, guys. That was really weird."

"Tell me about it," Kiba said while rolling his eyes, Akamaru barked in union.

"She was an odd one, wasn't she?" Shino asked quietly.

"And what about that last question? Harsh," I said, shaking my head. "What do you think about this all, Hinata?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry," Hinata said with a light blush on her face. I looked at where she had been staring at a moment ago. I saw Naruto talking with Sakura and Sasuke. "I was deep in thought. What did you say?"

"No you weren't. You were staring at Naruto, weren't you?" I said with a smile on my face. Hinata's blush began to deepen. "Or was it Sasuke that you were staring at?"

"N-no, it wasn't either of them," Hinata shuddered, waving her hands in front of her face. "I was just thinking about something, that's all."

"Would that something's name Naruto?" I said smirking at Hinata. Hinata's Face was now completely red. "So it is Naruto, isn't it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Will you guys give it a rest? Lynne, you can clearly see by the blush on Hinata's face that she likes Naruto. Now can we please drop this and get going? We have to meet up at the gate of the Forest of Death." Kiba said, clearly very annoyed.

"Okay," I said, while moping the whole way there. Hinata's blush had just died down when we arrived at the gate.

"So this is the Forest of Death, huh? Doesn't look that scary to me," Akamaru barked at Kiba's remark.

"Don't get cocky Kiba. Many great, powerful ninja have died in that forest. Hence the name 'Forest of Death,'" I said. I decided to stop moping around and take a look at the Forest from where I stood behind the gate. When I was done I began to analyze my weapons and medical kit to make sure I had everything I needed. When I thought that I was well prepared I turned to the rest of the gang, noticing they too were checking over their tools. "Alright team, do you have everything you need?"

"Yes" Chimed all three voices with a bark from Akamaru.

"Alright, now we just have to wait for another 5 more minutes till the instructor arrives."

"Okay," came all three voices again.

We waited till Anko-sensei showed up. She went over all the rules and regulations with us. We had to sign a release form before we entered into our own gates. Holding the Heaven scroll in my hand I looked at my team mates. "Here we go!" I yelled with a smile on my face. I walked through the gates, putting the scroll in my equipment bag that I keep at my hip.

About a half hour in the Forest of Death we came upon an unimportant team that fortunately had the Earth scroll, "it's okay team, I got this one."

"What are you going to do with us? You're just one little kid against 3 powerful Rain ninja!" said the ninja in the front. I didn't think he was important enough to remember. He's going to be dead in a minute anyway.

"Wait, Renji! Don't you know who that is?" someone from the back of the group asked, pointing in my direction.

"What are you talking about Pence? She's just a little runt who's going to learn her place in life, six feet under the ground," the guy named Renji said. The smile that was on his face was from ear to ear.

Shino walked over to my side. "Go away Shino, I don't need your help," I said threw my teeth.

"Weren't you from the Village Hidden in the Rain?"

"Yeah, so?"

"These people are Rain ninja. They might know who you are."

"Oh, Shit!"

"You don't get it, do you?" came the third person. "That's Lynne Rizu."

"Who is Lynne Riz-" Renji's face then lit up like a light bulb. "Oh. My. God! You're Lynne Rizu?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Pence said.

"What are they going on about, Lynne?" Kiba asked.

"Um, it's nothing Kiba. Don't worry about it." I said, I then started making hand signals. The tree men started to back up slowly. "You have something that we want." I held my hand out and one bright light later my sword was in my hand, "And I'm going to take it from you. Either we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Which is it?"

"We're not afraid of you! Come on guys, let's get her," yelled Renji.

"Guess it's going to be the hard way." I sighed. Jumping, I flipped twice in the air meeting Pence's shoulder. Blood splattered everywhere, including on my face. He slumped lifelessly to the ground. I spun around, hitting the third guy's exposed gut. More blood was added to the trees around us and on my face, shirt, and jacket. I turned to face Renji, he had a look of disgust and horror on his face.

"You're a monster," he yelled! He charged at me with a mix between a knife and a sword in his hand. "I'll kill you right where you stand!"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in, letting it out I opened my eyes again. He was still charging at me with tears of hate in his eyes. When he got within range he lifted his sword-like knife above his head. Big mistake. I arched my sword, slicing it right through his chest. He fell to his knees, a little blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. His head hit the ground with a thump. All three of them are now dead.

I bent down and grabbed the Earth scroll out of Renji's coat pocket. I walked over to my team, where Hinata held out a handkerchief so I could at least wipe up my face.

"What was that all about?" asked Kiba.

"What was what all about?" I asked, playing stupid. "Let's get going. We now have both scrolls so we want to get to the tower and fast." I said, trying to skip the subject.

"Alright" Kiba was reluctant to go on without some answers but thought otherwise.

Now, with both scrolls, we had high spirits. We were literally running to the tower at the center of the Forest of Death. My clothes reeked with the stench of blood. The stains had now taken a brownish rusty color. _First chance I get, I'm taking a LONG bath with fresh new clothes. _

Kiba stopped all of a sudden, sniffing the air. "I smell something bad."

"Stop fooling Kiba, I already know I have to take a shower. So just drop it." I said, walking to his side.

"No, it's not you. It's someone else." Kiba sniffed the air one last time. "Over there!" He pointed to a clearing just beyond some bushes.

I walked over to see what or who it was. But Kiba came up from behind and jumped on my back, making me fall over before I could get too close. Akamaru barked in my ear, "Get off of me Kiba!"

"Shush! Get down everyone." Kiba whispered. Shino and Hinata both did as they were told. Kiba rolled off of my back to lie next to me. "I know who it is. It's those Sand shinobi."

"What? Really?" I asked, whispering like Kiba had. I looked through the tangle of bushes in front of me to see. Before me were Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro in the heat of battle. It looked like Temari and Kankuro were just standing by, making Gaara do all the work.

I could barely hear what they were saying but I could make out some words here and there. What looked like the leader of the gang threw his umbrellas into the air, making needles fall all over the ground. It sent up a cloud of dust so I couldn't see what had happened to Gaara.

My chest was hurting, _What if something had happened to Gaara? _I was just about to run in there, when the dust died down. My heart almost jumped out of it chest cavity. Gaara had used his sand as a sort of barrier to ward off the attack, and he looked pist. _He's alright! Well, of course he's alright. Why wouldn't he be? Wait, why am I even worried? It's not like I care about what happens to him…do I?_

Before I could think about it any longer Gaara picked up one of the man's umbrellas and opened it over his head. He said something that I couldn't hear, and lifted his hand. Sand started to cover the man from head to foot, with the exception of his face. Gaara raised his hand up, lifting the man up with it.

"Sand Coffin! Sand Burial!" This time I could hear Gaara clearly. His voice was filled with hate. Gaara closed his hand into a fist, crushing the sand around the man and killing him instantly. Blood splattered everywhere, missing Gaara because he held the umbrella.

He then looked at the other guys, who were now placing the scroll on the floor and backing up slowly. Gaara dropped the umbrella and lifted both of his hands and more blood-stained sand wrapped itself around the two men. This time he uttered only one word, "die!" and closed his fist, crushing the other two. More blood was splattered everywhere.

Akamaru had been shaking for some time. Kiba had been trying to calm him but failed. "Come on guys, let's get out of here." Kiba said. Everyone started to back up, but not me. I wanted to stay a little longer.

"And where do you think you're going?" came that deep voice I heard that day in the alley and that night in the tree.

Everyone stopped walking, frozen in place. I stood up, facing Gaara and the other two. "Hey, Gaara." I said, smiling. Trying to make the best of the situation.

"…" Gaara just stared at me with death in his eyes.

"What do you think you're doing Lynne?" Kiba whispered to me from where he was. "You're going to get killed that way."

"Shut up Kiba! Let me handle this," I turned to answer back, I turned back to face Gaara. He just stood there, looking back at me. "I said 'Hey' so don't be rude. Answer back when I talk to you."

"I don't have to answer to you," Gaara said, still glaring at me.

I laughed, "You just did, silly."

Gaara deepened his glare, "That doesn't count."

"Oh, yes it does." I said smiling and wagging my finger at him.

"No, it doesn't. So stop acting like a child."

"No."

Gaara just quirked a non-existent eyebrow at me. Temari and Kankuro looked like they were ready to stop Gaara if he tried to kill me. Hinata, Shino, and Kiba looked like they were about to faint. I just smiled at everyone.

"Whatever, Let's just go. We have our scrolls." With that, Gaara turned around and started walking off. Temari and Kankuro looked like they were really confused, but followed Gaara anyway.

When they were gone and out of our sight Kiba jumped up and pointed at me, "What was that all about?! You could have been killed! Why didn't you just stay down?"

"Simple, I was board." I said fake yawning.

"But you could have been killed! He would have killed all of us!"

"Yeah, but he didn't." I smiled at him.

Hinata had already fainted as soon as they left. Kiba looked like he was going to argue some more but was cut off when Shino spoke up. "Would you too stop arguing? We need to set up camp for the night, seeing how Hinata is passed out."

"Alright, I'll get some food and water." I jumped off into the woods to do exactly what I said I'd do.

Later that night, after we made camp, ate, and went to bed, I got up when everyone had finally fallen asleep. I went to a clearing in the forest and started training some more. _Tomorrow we are going to reach the tower and pass this part of the test. Then I'm going to win, even if that means fighting Gaara in the finals. _I quickened all of my strokes and made every thrust of my blade harder. _I am not going to loss to him. No matter what…_

----

Ooooh, cliff hanger. ^^ well, not really. I'll start writing chapter 5 right now. hope you enjoyed.

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	5. The Kiss

Sorry that I haven't updated sooner, I have a good exuse too. I was just getting teh chapter finished and I saved it all on my memory stick before I left school but when I got home I noticed that it was missing. I looked everywhere and even called up the schooland Bus garage but I couldn't find it. so I had to retype it all over again. But some good came out of it. I made teh fighting scene better and made teh ending better too. ^-^ sorry again.

DISCLAIMER!!! I do not own or work for Naruto, Therefore I do not own any ot teh characters... Except for Lynne and Shizuko.

Enjoy!

Chapter 5

The Kiss

----

We woke up later that night while it was still dark out. We wanted to get to the tower as fast as we could without any interruptions. And seeing how it was dark out we thought now would be the perfect time to get a head start on the day and get ahead of the others.

We only ran for half an hour when I could start to see the top of the tower more clearly while it was also getting bigger. "Come one guys. It's not that far away." I said, trying to cheer everyone up from yesterday's events.

**You seem really eager to get there. Why is that?**

_Oh, great! Not you again! Where have you been all this time? _

**You didn't need me so I took a sort of, what you people call, a 'Vacation'.**

_And you decide that NOW is the perfect time to show up? _

**It amuses me how you get so worked up over tiny things. **Ka Ryu said. I could hear a low chuckle in the back of my head.

We arrived at the tower sooner than expected. It was still dark out when we got inside. The building had a sort of sickly feeling. The place seemed to have a heavy and upsetting aura hanging around it that made my skin crawl.

We were walking down the hall when I spotted Kankuro, Temari, and Gaara leaning against the wall. _Looks like they been here for awhile. _

**Of course they have, and you knew they were going to be here. That's why you wanted to get here so fast.**

_Oh, shut up! You oversized lizard!_ I could hear Ka Ryu laughing at that.

**Alright, alright. No need to get hostile on me. We're friends, remember? **

_Some friend you are._ I heard more chuckling and then it died down, leaving me to my own thoughts again.

The trio was glaring at us while we walked on. Hinata, Kiba, and Shino stared at them while I just looked ahead. I was trying not to look in their direction for fear that I might get lost in those mesmerizing turquoise eyes.

Once everyone showed up that wasn't dead the Hokage himself told us about the next part of the Chunin Exams. When he was finished with the rules two names flashed on the board overhead. Another man, who looked deadly sick, showed up and claimed to be the protractor for the matches.

I walked up to the balcony with my team mates and watched the battle from above. It didn't last long and resulted in Sasuke being the winner… of course. But in the end he looked pretty beat up and had to be rushed to the hospital. When I looked back at the board I saw my name along with a girl by the name of Shizuko Takahashi. She had shoulder–length brown hair and wore a pink and purple kimono that stopped at her knees. She bore a Sound headband on her forehead and her eyes were the color the night sky. A normal guy would have said she was gorgeous.

I jumped down to the battle field, completely ignoring the stairs, and waited for the slow walking girl to show up. As soon as we took our positions the protractor signaled for us to begin. The girl grabbed for a kunai and threw it straight in my direction. I jumped into the air before it could hit me. When I got to the peck of my jump I started spinning, making kunai and shuriken fly in a storm at the unexpected girl.

She grabbed for a knife from her kimono and started blocking off the assault, missing a few. I landed gracefully on my feet and looked at the now panting girl. She held the knife at her side and had small cuts on her arms, legs, and shoulders. She lifted her hand up to her mouth, holding two fingers up and leaving the others in a tight fist. "Healing Jutsu!" and her small cuts started to heal. But the big cut on her side was too big for her to heal so she only managed to stop the bleeding and close it up a little.

Shizuko just looked at me and slowed her breathing. She then made a series of hand signals and lifted her hand up to her face, covering her eyes. "Chameleon Coat Jutsu!" the girl started to shimmer then disappeared completely. I looked from side to side, even looking up, but I couldn't find her. I then felt a searing pain in my left side. I looked down to see a slash mark going up my hip that was flowing blood. I went to cover it up but I felt another stab in my right arm, then again across my check.

I was getting mad, **let me help, Lynne. I can kill her for you. Just summon me and I'll kill that worm. **

_No, I can't. I have to do this on my own, without your help._

**If you insist on doing this the hard way then I won't help. **

_No, it's just that you can't be seen, remember? _

**Oh… right, almost forgot. **

I made a series of hand signs ignoring the pain in my left arm. I lifted my right hand to my face, with two fingers held together straight up and the other fingers held into a fist. I closed my eyes and spread my fingers so that each finger was held under each eye. "Dragon Eye Jutsu!" I opened my eyes. They looked just like Ka Ryu's, blood red with the pupils in a tight slit. My vision had a tint of red to it but I could see further, clearer, better, and, more importantly, I could see Shizuko.

I made it look like I still couldn't see her, looking from left to right. She laughed, her voice echoing throughout the arena, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. "Nice try, but you can't see me. I can bend the light around my body to appear invisible. I can even go as far as manipulate my sound waves so you can't tell where I really am." She laughed once more.

_Man, I hate that laugh, it's so annoying._ I could hear a slight chuckle coming from Ka Ryu. _It's almost as annoying as your laugh. _

**Hey, now. Don't hate me, hate the girl in front of you.**

I made another set of hand signs and lifted my arm straight out in front of me. A bright light shimmered in my hand and my Dragon Sword appeared before me. I could see her off to my left but I still put on the act that I couldn't see her.

"You can't hit what you can't see. So why do you even bother going on?" I was tired of her snotty remarks and her cocky attitude. I ran at her with inhuman-like speed and sliced her chest before she could even figure out that I could see her. "How?" she could barely get out her question. There was a trail of blood dripping from the corner of her lip and down her chin. "How could you see me?"

"Simple, you got too cocky." I stated. See got mad and I seen the anger flare up in her eyes. She gripped her knife and started making wild slashes and jabs at me. I dodged every single one of them, making sure she didn't get too close, watching for an opening to appear. I saw it, she pulled her arm back, keeping the knife below her hip, and was about to go for by stomach, I took it. I lunged forward with my sword raised. We met half way, she stabbed the knife in my stomach and I swiped my sword across her neck. She shimmered, and if it wasn't for the fact that I still had my Dragon Eyes I'm sure that I would be able to see her. She fell down, releasing her hold of the knife, and landed with a thud on the floor. The pool of blood around Shizuko grew bigger and bigger with every passing second.

I closed my eyes and whispered "release" My sword then disappeared and when I opened my eyes once more they were back to normal. The protractor announced me as the winner since Shizuko was proclaimed dead. I looked up and saw faces of horror, disgust, sympathy but the one that stuck out the most was Gaara's. Though his face was blank I could just make out the tiniest of a smirk. I walked calmly to the door and left. I ran about a mile before I stopped at the base of a tree and sat down. I closed my eyes and pulled the knife out of my belly and started to heal myself. First the big hole in my stomach, then the gash on my left side, the slash on my shoulder, and the cut on my check. It looked like I was never hurt in the first place.

I was going to head back to the tournament and watch my team fight but I was too stiff and tired to move. I looked up at the sky and watched the clouds instead.

_Why can't I be a cloud? Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Just drifting along with no worries. _

**That life would be too easy, and you hate taking the easy way out.**

_I know, it's just, sometimes I wish I wasn't even born._

**I know what you mean, you had a hard life, but that is no reason to sell yourself short. You have a lot of things in life you haven't even got to enjoy.**

_Like…? _

**Like Sex. **

I almost choked. _What the hell are you trying to do?! Kill me? I'm too young to start thinking that way._

**I know, that's why I'm not going to let you die. You need to enjoy the finer things in life, like sex. **

_No way, maybe when I get older but I'm not thinking about it anytime soon. Besides, I don't even have a boyfriend. None of the guys even like me. _

**Not true. I know someone who likes you. **

_Who? _

**You're going to find out here in a little bit. **

_What do you mean?_

**He's coming this way.**

_Who?_

**You'll find out soon enough.**

_I swear, one of these days, I'm going to kill you._

**Quick! Here he comes.**

I slumped back into the trunk of the tree, waiting for who-knows-what and looking at the clouds. That's when I heard him, He sounded tired, like he just got out of battle.

"Hey Lynne, Whatcha doing?" I looked up to see a very beat up looking Naruto. It's Naruto? So that's who likes me?

"Oh, hey Naruto. I'm not doing anything, just looking at the clouds." I said, looking back up at the sky.

"Oh, well that sounds boring."

"To you, maybe, but not me."

"Then can I sit next to you?"

"Sure, go ahead."

He sat next to me against the tree. He looked at me, then at the clouds.

"So how was your battle? Did you lose?" I asked, trying to make conversation.

"No, I won! Believe IT!" He gave a thumbs up sigh and smiled his toothy smile.

"That's good. Who did you go against?"

"Kiba and Akamaru."

"No kidding and you actually won?"

"Yeah, too bad you didn't watch the fight."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I was too tired and stiff from healing myself that I couldn't get up."

"Need help?"

"Maybe later, right now I just want to sit here and enjoy the silence."

"Really? Those battles in there are really starting to heat up."

"No thank you." I closed my eyes. _Why am I so tired all of a sudden?_

We just sat there, looking at the sky until I said that we should probably head back.

"Why? It's starting to get nice, being out here with you."

I looked Naruto in the eye and he looked back. Not a lot of people would like to just sit with me, or be around me for that matter. I looked away before I got too distracted "Because, they might say something important that we need to hear for the next part of the exams."

I could see Naruto getting up from the corner of my eye. He reached a hand out to help me get up. I took his firm hand in mine. I noted that fact that when I touched Naruto's hand it wasn't the same as a few days ago when I accidentally touched Gaara's. He pulled me up a little harder than necessary and caught me before I fell over again.

I was now up against Naruto's lean chest with his arms wrapped around me. I looked up at his face but that was a big mistake. As soon as I tilted my head up to look at him he leaned down and kissed me unexpectedly on the lips. I was too shocked that I didn't even close my eyes or bothered to kiss back. It was just a simple kiss, just a peck on the lips. He pulled away after only a second, but it had seemed like an eternity. He looked at me and blinked, then released me and took a step back. I lifted my hand up to my lips. I didn't know what to think, so I just ran, as fast as I could away from there.

I didn't know where I was heading and I didn't care. So long as I was away from everyone I didn't care. I ran for an hour until I reached a clearing in the woods. I slowed down and could feel the stiffness in my bones. I fell to the grass covered ground and just lied there on my stomach. I soon started to cry. _Why am I crying? It was only a kiss? And it was only Naruto, so why get so worked up over nothing? _

**You can be so confusing sometimes, you know that?**

_What are you talking about? I didn't want any of this. _

**Yes you did, so don't try to lie to me. I could tell you wanted to kiss a boy for a long time now. **

_Yes, but not Naruto!_

**Then whom, my I ask?**

_I don't know._

**Yes you do, you just don't want to admit it.**

_There isn't anyone, okay?_

**Yes there is, I can tell. You like that Gaara kid, don't you?**

_Shut up! You don't know who I like!_

**Yes I do. We are connected.**

_Whatever! Just Shut up and leave me alone, okay?_

**Fine, have it your way.**

I then cried myself to sleep. I was too drained and didn't care that I was about to fall asleep in the middle of the wood, on the ground. Darkness enveloped me in seconds.

----

Duh, Duh, DUH!!! Didn't see thatcoming, did you?

*Imaginary audiance throws rocks, garbage, and fruits at me* No stop, I had to do it. It made agreat twist in the plot.

Im going to start typing up Chapter 6, and hopefully I wont have to retype that one too. ^^

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	6. Sand

Okay, here it is, sorry I took too long to update. I went to a llama farm and was lucky enough to see a baby lamb get born. I had a lot of fun. Anyway, here is the story.

DISCLAIMER!! I do not own or work for Naruto, therefore I do not own the characters... Except for Lynne.

Warning: Contains Adult language and Adult Content. (not sex yet)

Chapter 6

Sand

**_You're a monster! You don't belong here! Go away, nobody cares about you! Mommy, I'm scared! MONSTER!! _**I sat straight up in bed, panting heavily and gripping my chest. I could hear the echo of my screams roaming throughout my empty room. My face was covered with cold sweat and my blonde hair was out of its ponytail and was matted to my face.

I haven't had a nightmare since I was a little kid. I just sat there, listening to my heavy breathing for a few minutes before I realized that I was hungry. I stood up, letting the sheet fall to the floor, and walked to the kitchen and got a glass of milk from the fridge. It wasn't until I sat down at the table in the middle of the kitchen that I realized where I was. _Why am I at home? I'm pretty sure I fell asleep in the middle of the woods last night. _

I got up, still holding the glass of milk in my hand, and walked around the house. I looked everywhere but nothing was missing and nothing was out of place. It was just the way I had left it the day I left to go to the Chunin Exams. I walked back into the kitchen and that's where I found it. It was small but I couldn't believe I had almost missed it. There was a note taped to the fridge. I walked up to it and took it off. The writing seemed to have been written with care and had a cursive etch to the letters.

**_Dear Lynne,_**

**_I am sorry that I had to tell to by note and not in person but we have pulled you out of the Chunin exams. But don't worry, you were so smart, cunning, strong, and had great leadership skills that the council and I have agreed and made you a Chunin. _**

**_If you're wondering how you got home one of the students in the Exams found you passed out in the woods and took the liberty of taking you home for us. They asked us to keep their identity a secret and I tend to keep it that way. You may still watch the Exams but you cannot participate in it. I am very sorry._**

**_-The Hokage_**

I flipped the paper over but the back was blank except for the village's leave sigh in the middle. I flipped it back to the front and read it again.

_So, the Hokage pulled me out... I wonder who found me? _

**I know who found you. You may have been asleep, but I was wide awake.**

_Who was it?_

**I'm not telling you.**

_Why not?_

**Why should I?**

_I swear, one of these days, I'm going to get you._

**Oh, I'm sooo scared! **Ka Ryu said sarcastically. **What are you going to do?**

_I'll figure something out!_

**While you do that I'll just keep the mystery to myself.**

_Fuck you!_

I heard Ka Ryu chuckle then fall silent. I finished my glass of milk and rinsed my glass out. After putting it in the cupboard I went to my room and opened my wardrobe. Everything was neat and folded or hanging up. I liked to keep things neat and orderly. After living on the streets I learned to appreciate what I have. Soon after arriving here in the Village Hidden in the Leaves they gave me a home. I was given some clothes and money to set up my life and that was all I needed. The Hokage came to visit me at my new home whenever he had the time. He was like the dad I never had.

I grabbed my usual outfit and took a quick shower. I got dressed in a rush and combed my hair out. I didn't want to put it up into a ponytail today so I kept it down to dry. I slipped on my black sandals and grabbed, and tied on, my hip bag before heading out the door.

I ran down the streets that were getting packed because everyone was showing up at the next part of the Chunin Exams. I tried to squeeze past but there was no room and everyone was walking too slowly. I looked up and saw my chance. I ran to the nearest building and jumped to the top in one bound. People were staring at me- probably because the building was five stories up- but I didn't care. I jumped from roof top to roof top, getting closer and closer to the arena where the fights would be held. When I got there I didn't stop, I jumped down and ran through the doors. Two of the guards started yelling at me and shaking their fists. One even started chasing me, but I was too fast for him.

I started laughing, man I was having fun. I turned around to see if he was still chasing me but he must have realized that he was outmatched and stopped. I didn't get the chance to turn back around before I ran into something hard and solid. I almost fell down if it was for the fact that someone caught me before I fell. I looked up to see that I didn't run into a _something_ but _someone_, and that someone was Gaara. He had his arms wrapped around my waist to keep me from falling and our bodies were pressed together.

Just being this close to him gave me goose flesh. I looked up into his eyes and he looked down at mine. I now realized that Gaara was an inch taller than me. His emotions were hidden behind a mask but I could see them in his eyes. I could have sworn I seen a glint of happiness in them but he looked away before I could read too much into it. He let go of me and took a step back.

"Um… sorry about that. I guess I wasn't looking where I was going," I mumbled.

"…" Gaara just stood there staring at me. I looked down at the floor for a few seconds before I got the courage to look him in the eye. His face was blank as usual. I slowly looked back down and started to walk past him, and he let me. I walked all the way up to the seating area and sat down in the front. A few minutes later Hinata and Kiba took a seat on my left and Sakura and Ino sat on my right. Hinata and Kiba looked at me with a confused expression, and so did everyone else who had showed up at that point, who happened to be everyone who wasn't participating in the event.

"What?"

"Aren't you supposed to be up there with them? Fighting?" Kiba asked.

"No, why? Didn't they tell you?"

"Tell us what?" Sakura chimed in.

"That they pulled me out."

"What! Why?" Everyone asked in union.

"Because they made me a Chunin, so there was no need to go on with the Exams."

"But why?" Ino asked.

"I don't know."

"That's weird…" Hinata final talked. "U-usually they have a reason."

_Yeah, because I'm a monster and they don't want me to kill anyone else._ But I kept that thought to myself. The next part of the Chunin Exams was starting and Naruto showed up late, as usual. _Why would he kiss me? Why would he even like me?_

I was too caught up in my own thoughts that I didn't hear Sakura talking to me about Sasuke not showing up. She got mad at me because I didn't respond to her so she started snapping her fingers in my face. She was getting annoying and I would love to kill her but I made a promise that I intend to keep. I grabbed her wrist and she instantly stopped snapping but she did start yelling at me to let her go. _With a flick of your hand you can break her wrist. That's all it takes, Lynne, just one flick._ But I just ended up letting her go.

"What the Hell Lynne!" Sakura yelled in my ear. "Why did you just do that?"

"You were snapping your fingers in front of my face like I'm a dog. What was I suppose to do?"

"Respond to me when I talk to you."

"I can think, can't I?"

"Sorry, but what were you thinking about? You seemed pretty deep in thought."

"Nothing."

"Come on! You can tell me," Sakura pleaded.

"No," I replied blankly.

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?" Sakura's pleading was getting louder.

"No."

"PLEASE?"

"I SAID NO! You need to mind your own business and leave me the fuck alone!" I snapped at her. I looked around and noticed everyone around us was staring at Sakura, who was about to burst into tears, and me. Sighing, I turned and stormed off. Naruto and Neji were in the middle of their fight. I was fuming mad at Sakura so I just wondered the halls of the arena. _Man! I hate Sakura!!!_

**Then why be friends with her?**

_I don't know!_

**Then Kill her.**

_I can't!_

**Why not? It'll be easy.**

_You know what I mean. I made a promise and I tend to keep it!_

I was so focused on talking to Ka Ryu that I didn't notice someone walking up behind me until he spoke up. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out there, watching the fights?"

That voice made me jump and spin around, only to be face to face with Gaara. I smirked "Shouldn't you be out there? You're the one in the fight."

Gaara quirked a non-existent eyebrow at me. "Wasn't it you who said 'I asked first so don't be rude?"

"Yeah, but that applied to you, not me." I said, smiling.

"… Whatever."

"Don't say 'whatever' it's like saying 'fuck you' and I don't like it when people tell me that."

"Why do you insist on acting like a child?"

"Why do you insist on acting like a child?" I mocked him.

"Stop that."

"Stop that."

"I mean it." Gaara said, getting angry.

"I mean it."

"See, and people wonder why I don't talk." Gaara snapped. He flared his hands in the air above his head. I just laughed, bending over from the lack of oxygen. When I had finally stopped laughing and could stand up straight I looked at Gaara. "I'm glad you think this is funny."

"I do, actually." I said with a smile on my face again.

"You do, huh?" Gaara started walking towards me. I started to back up but sand was wrapping itself around my legs, keeping me in place. I looked down at my sand-covered legs then at Gaara. He was getting closer and closer, with a mischievous smile planted on his face. I started to panic. _He wants to kill me, just like the three ninjas in the Forest of Death. I was only kidding, and now…_ Gaara was in front of me, the smile was now replaced with a smirk. "Do you think I'm funny now?"

Even now, in the face of death, I'm as witty as ever. "Why, yes. Yes you are."

Gaara's smirk dropped from his face, it was now replaced with a blank look. The sand began to spread upward, covering everything from my neck and down. Gaara leaned in close, his hot breath on my ear. "I'll give you one more chance. If you answer correctly I'll let you live. Now, am I funny to you?"

I could barely breathe making my answer come out in a hoarse voice, "Absolutely… hilarious." The sand around me began to tighten and squeeze me tighter and tighter. Making it harder and harder to breathe. Gaara was still close to me, with murder in his eyes. I could see black spots dancing behind my eyes. I closed my eyelids, thinking that childhood thought that if you don't see it, it won't happen. I was mere seconds from dying when all of a sudden the sand just let go and I fell to the ground, coughing and wheezing in air. When I thought that my breathing was back to normal I looked up at Gaara. He was holding his head between his hands and was doubled over in pain.

Gaara was moaning and it looked like the pain was getting worse. I didn't know what to do and I was so scared that I started scotching back, not finding the nerve to stand. I kept scotching until my back hit the wall. Gaara was still too close for my liking so I tucked my legs in till it was pressed against my chest and I wrapped my arms around my legs. I was a scared little girl again, back on the streets of the Village Hidden in the Rain.

Gaara was still doubled over in pain but was now reaching out at me. Groaning something that I couldn't understand. I tried to listen but all I could make out was a low groan and the word, Lynne. He took a small step towards me that looked like it had taken much effort to accomplish, I flinched. Gaara was still reaching out at me but I was just out of his reach. He took another step towards me that had closed the gap between us.

I closed my eyes tight and waited for the killing blow. I didn't fight back, why should I? If I'm going to die by someone else's hands why not Gaara's? I could see the pain and suffering just in his eyes alone, I didn't need him to tell me what life he had, I could see it for myself. If killing me helped him take away the pain, even for just a second, then I'd have let him kill me a hundred times over.

But he didn't kill me, he didn't even hurt me. His hand was held gently against my cheek. I opened one eye then the other. What I saw shocked me. Gaara was still holding his head with one hand but had stopped groaning and looked like the pain had subsided. Gaara was kneeling down on one knee and was eye level with me. His eyes were trained on mine. He opened his mouth but found it hard to make sound come out. When he finally could say something it came out slow and ragged, "I'm sorry… I shouldn't have… done that. I… couldn't help… myself. Please… forgive me."

I could barely see him now because tears were swelling up in my eyes. I tried to blink them back but they just kept coming till they spilled over and ran down my cheek. I opened my mouth but couldn't find my voice, so I raised my hand up to my face and placed it over Gaara's hand that was still caressing my cheek.

Gaara seemed to have gotten my message because he was now smiling. I only now realized that my body was shivering in fear but had now started to calm down. Gaara lifted his hand off of his head and placed it on my other cheek, rubbing his thumbs to wipe away the tears. _Why am I still crying? _But I couldn't think about that too much because Gaara had then locked his lips against mine. At first I was surprised but soon closed my eyes and started kissing back. My body wasn't shivering from cold of fear but from excitement, it was like electricity running through my spine. The sensation of Gaara's lips on mine was exhilarating. It was nothing like the kiss with Naruto, I only now knew the feeling of pure bliss.

After what seemed like hours, but were only seconds, Gaara pulled away slightly for air. I leaned my forehead on Gaara's so that we would be touching. I looked into his eyes and he looked into mine once more. I still didn't know what this feeling is in the pit of my stomach. It felt like millions of little butterflies were flitting around inside of my belly. It wasn't until I heard the roar and yelling in the arena that I remembered where we were and that Gaara had a fight to attend to.

"Gaara?"

"Yes?"

"You should probably get going. You have a fight that you need to win." I hated to say it but it needed to be said. Gaara closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He then stood up and the sand retracted back into his gourd. I stood up too and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Good luck, and kick Sasuke's ass for me."

I then walked down the corridor, never looking back. There was a smile dancing around my lips

Hope you liked it, I'll work on it some more. Next time you see Gaara and the others fight. ^^

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	7. The Fight

Sorry it took so long, I really dont know what went on at the Chunin Exams because I never watched it so this is all either random guessing or random YouTube video clips.

DICLAIMER!!! I do not own of work for Naruto, therefore I do not own any of the Characters... Except for lynne

Chapter 7

The Fight

I walked silently down the aisles, walking to my seat next to the annoying and still pissed off Sakura. "Look who decided to show up."

"Oh, shut it Sakura! I came to say sorry but it's clear that either way you'll still be a bitch." I sat down and looked at the arena. The last battle had been between Temari and Shikamaru. The battle arena had already been cleared away only to be ruined again when Sasuke and Kakashi showed up in a show of blowing leaves and a new look. _Go figure! Sasuke has to be the one to show up with not only a new look but in a flashy show._

"Sasuke showed up after all!" Sakura yelled her eyes wide in affection. _God! She's like a puppy fallowing her owner._

Once everyone had calmed down and took their seats the new protractor called out to start the next match. Gaara showed up in the middle of the field, looking ready to fight. The fight was signaled to begin and Sasuke started off with throwing a set of shuriken at Gaara, but all of them were caught in mid-strike by one of Gaara's sand clones. Sasuke let loose with a barrage of fast punches and kicks, all of them were blocked by a ring of sand. Somehow Sasuke got past the sand and nailed a punch in Gaara's face.

The only damage seemed to be a crack in his left check but I couldn't help myself from gripping the edge of my seat. Hinata could see the tension in the air around me and the worry in my eyes. She looked first from me then to the battle. Gaara began moving his sand into a tight wall around him to keep Sasuke out.

Sasuke tried to attack the tight formation but only ended up almost killing himself. He ran to the side of the wall and began collecting chakra with blue lights flashing and loud crackling sound echoing throughout the arena. I stole a glance back at Gaara and noticed a small eye floating around the barrier.

I looked back at Sasuke who had gathered up the chakra needed for the Jutsu. In his hand was a ball of raging chakra in the form of lightning. The sound was defining and the flickering lights could give an old man a seizure. He ran towards Gaara's shield with fast moves, mimicking the speed of Lee's Taijustu. Sasuke hit the barrier, making a hole in the wall of sand. I heard a load yell that seemed to carry on forever.

My fingers were clutching the edge of the seat so hard I could hear the wood starting to splinter and crack. I was leaning forward so much that I nearly fell off of the seat completely. It was Gaara's yelling that had sent me over the edge. My jaw was set tight. I had to blink back tears that threaten to overflow.

Gaara's sand barrier was crumbling, showing a spot on his right shoulder that was bleeding. Gaara was holding his head with both of his hands. He seemed out of it and in great pain. I looked at Sasuke with fury in my eyes. Oh, how I wanted to kill Sasuke right now. He had hurt my Gaara and he was just standing there, a smirk was planted on his face.

I was too out of it that I didn't notice everyone in the arena starting to fall asleep. Gaara was now accompanied with Temari and Kankuro along with another man that was older and seemed to be their sensei. While they were trying to help Gaara I turned to my friends. They were all asleep and apparently at one point Kiba had left with Hinata somewhere. I couldn't help my friends from this powerful Genjutsu.

_Why wasn't I affected like the others?_

**Because you have me.**

_What does that have to do with anything?_

**Well, because of my tough armored plating any kind of Genjutsu just bounces off of me, and since I'm in your body it has the same effect on you.**

_So, your finally becoming useful?_

**Shut up! I'm always useful, remember that one time with the… How about the time when…**

_See?_

**SHUT UP!!**

_Make me!!_

**Don't you have someone you need to save?**

_Oh, right!_

Gaara and his siblings were leaving the arena with a very angry Sasuke following pursuit. I looked over my shoulder to see Kakashi and Gai fighting off a gang of ANBU Black Ops. Next to them was Sakura waking up a very annoyed Naruto. _So, she got out if it too? At least shes good for something. _

I looked up and noticed that the third Hokage and the Kazekage were in a fight. _So it was a trap huh? I should have guessed._

Nobody had even noticed me so I snuck to a giant hole in the wall close to where I was and jumped down to the ground floor. I looked up to see Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro running off through the tree tops and Sasuke following not far behind. I turned to see Sakura waking up a couple more people and getting ready to catch up with Sasuke. I knew they wouldn't make it in time and judging from the small blood trail leading in the direction of Gaara I assumed that I didn't have much time either.

I gathered up some chakra into the souls of my feet and started off at high speed. I was jumping from tree branch to tree branch to catch up to the others. Anger and fury pushing me forward, but there something more. I felt like someone had punched a hole in the center of my heart. Like something was ripped from my soul and I felt exposed.

I quickened my pace, but soon had to stop when I caught sight of them. I hid behind a tree for fear that they might see me. I didn't want them to see me, not yet at least. I heard the others coming and turned to see Sakura, Naruto, Shino, and a little dog running past me without seeing me.

Kankuro stopped and turned around to face the oncoming threat. After a few exchanges of speach Kankuro and Shino started fighting while Sakura, Naruto, and the dog ran off in the direction of Gaara and Temari. I didn't care for the fight too much and started in the same direction. I stayed close behind but not close enough to get caught. The dog seemed to have caught my sent and looked in my direction, I lifted my finger to my lips to show him to keep quiet. Lucky for me the dog seemed to have understood and turned back around and ignored me.

We were getting close and I could tell that there was a fight up ahead. _Sasuke! I swear, if I get there and Gaara has so much as scratch on him because of you I'll kill you!_

When Naruto, Sakura and the dog suddenly stopped I stopped a few feet behind and hid again. I looked at the scene before me. Sasuke was in a heated fight with Gaara and Temari wasn't even in sight. Gaara seemed to have been transforming into a beast and Sasuke was losing the battle. With one last move Gaara knocked Sasuke out cold. Naruto and Sakura jumped to Sasuke's unconscious body. The dog started talking and telling Naruto and Sakura what to do. If it wasn't for the fact that I was so angry I would have been freaked out.

Gaara started to transform some more

_What the hell is happening to him?_

**Gaara, too, has a demon inside of him, just like you and Naruto. He has the One-tail Shikaku. I sensed it earlier with the incident in the alleyway.**

_And you didn't tell me about this before?_

**No, I didn't think it mattered, does it?**

_Well, no! But it would have been nice to know._

**Well, you know now.**

_Like I don't have enough reasons to be angry?_

When I was done talking with Ka Ryu some of the battle had already taken place. Now Sakura was pinned to a tree by Gaara's sand that was packed tight and was constricting around her. There was also a hundred Naruto's scattered all around Gaara. But no matter how many clones Naruto had he couldn't hit Gaara.

I was starting to relax seeing that Naruto was the only one left but then he got Gaara with an explosive. _Damn!_

Gaara didn't seem too hurt but the sand that had been transforming around him was taking its time to get back into place. I took this as my queue and jumped out from behind the tree. Naruto seemed a little surprised but Gaara looked no different. _He must have known I was here the whole time._

"Stop this! You don't need to fight!" I yelled so both Gaara and Naruto could hear me.

"Try telling that to Gaara!" one of Naruto's clones pointed to Gaara.

Gaara didn't seem to have heard him, he was transforming again. Now over half of his body was covered in the Shikaku's armor. Gaara looked at me with anger and a hint of sorrow in his eyes. His voice came out in short pants but I could hear him as if he was standing right next to me. "Look at me Lynne. I'm a monster! Now go run like all of the others!"

"No! I'd never run from you Gaara! Never! Remember that!" Tears were streaming down my face. I tried to stop them but they just kept coming.

Gaara started laughing, it was menacing and demonic. He looked at me with eyes a golden color surrounded in a never ending black abyss. Shikaku's eyes. Gaara doubled over in pain and gripped his head. He slowly began to look back up at me. "That was they all say, RIGHT BEFORE THEY TRY TO KILL ME!" Gaara started to transform again into his final stage. Now Shikaku was towered over both me and Naruto. Gaara lifted his hands in front of him and made a sigh that soon put him to sleep.

I looked over to Naruto who then bit his thumb, letting blood form at the wound. He made a series of hand signals and slammed his hand down on tree branch. A large puff of smoke took his place and the next second a giant toad was standing across from Shikaku and Gaara's sleeping figure. _Wow, Naruto must have trained hard to have been able to summon a creature that big and powerful. _

For the next few minutes I could only stand and watch as Gaara and Naruto fought. The fight had ended in a head to head collision between Naruto and Gaara, literally. Both beasts were now gone and Naruto and Gaara were now on the ground. I ran over to where they lay and saw Naruto squirming inch by inch towards Gaara, who just laid there. I walked over to Naruto and placed my hand on his back.

"It's over Naruto," I said calmly. "You don't have to fight anymore." Naruto looked up at me and gave out a big sigh before passing out. I looked over to Gaara who hadn't moved and was now staring at me. I walked to Gaara and knelt down beside him when I reached him. He looked up at me and I reached out with my hand and touched his cheek that had been cracked earlier in the fight with Sasuke. "I told you I wouldn't run from you, and I meant what I said. Me and you, we're the same."

Gaara's eyes widened at my words then softened as I kissed him. It seemed like the last time we kissed was years ago. I pulled away slightly to give Gaara some air and noticed Temari and Kankuro nearby. They looked shock and confused but otherwise in one piece. They looked from Gaara, to me, to Naruto's body, then back to Gaara. "What the Hell happened while we were gone?" Kankuro yelled more than asked.

Gaara, never taking his eyes off of me, answered. "Nothing you need to know about. Now help me up."

Temari and Kankuro walked over to Gaara's side and picked him up, each one supporting him on each side. That's when Sasuke and Sakura, along with the weird talking dog, showed up. Gaara looked at me one last time before his older siblings took him away.

When they were finally out of my sight I turned around to face the others. Sakura stared at me with shock covering her face, Sasuke, along with the dog, looked board as usual, and Naruto was still passed out. "Um…" I was at a loss for words and I really didn't like any of them so I just ended up just standing there.

After a while Sakura seemed to have gotten over the shock and went over to Naruto to check to see if he was okay. Sasuke just kept giving me a death stare that was starting to creep me out. I began to back up slowly at first then turned around completely and took off as fast as I could for the village so nobody would question me.

Hoped you enjoyed! ^^

Now I just have one quetion that I need you guys to answer for me, otherwise I'll never be able to write the next Chapter.

"how long was it from the end of the fight between Gaara and Naruto and Sasuke leaving?"

please answer this question!!! I am also starting a new story with Gaara as a vampire who meets a girl right before Christmas and then erases her memories because she knows but they meet again later when Gaara attends her school.

Thanks for reading, Reviews would be nice.

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	8. Secrets are Spilled

Alright, sorry for the lateness, I have school and all. anyway...

DISCLAIMER! I do not own or work for Naruto, therefore I do not own any of the characters...except for Lynne Rizu!

Enjoy ^w^

**Chapter 8**

**Secrets are Spilled**

It has been over a month since that day. When I had returned back to the village I found out that the Hokage had been assassinated by Orochimaru. I made a vow that the next time I seen that bastard I would kill him personally.

I have been training hard with Hinata, Kiba, and Shino every day since. I have gained many new moves and gotten faster, stronger, and smatter to follow through with that vow. Today was no different. We had been training for continuous hour non-stop. Kiba had been complaining for the past hour for a rest and Shino was as silent as ever. Hinata had been training with me as hard as ever to get the approval of Naruto. I never told anyone that we had kissed and I assumed that he hasn't either.

Naruto and I haven't talked since that day and I was sort of relieved. Even if we had talked I wouldn't have anything to say. I haven't talked to Sasuke or Sakura for that matter either. Whenever I seen them Sasuke gives me a cross between a stare and a glare while Sakura doesn't acknowledge me at all. I don't mind though, I never cared much for Sakura or Sasuke.

I was so lost in my inner thoughts that I didn't notice Shino walk up behind me until he spoke up, "I think you might need to give it a rest. Kiba is starting to annoy me with his constant complaining." I jumped three inches into the air and spun around to face the bug maniac. His eyes were hidden behind the usual sunglasses that he wore.

"Um, sure," I finally got out. "We can be done for the day. We've all trained hard and I think we made great progress." I turned to Hinata, who had just sat down at the base of a hollow tree. "Besides, I heard from little bird that Naruto and the others had returned from their mission with a couple of minor injuries and I kind of thought a little certain someone might want to visit him in the hospital."

Hinata's face turned a deep shade of red and she jumped to her feet and ran for the hospital in less than a second. I started to laugh when I heard Kiba speak up. "Is that so, Lynne? Or were you just lying to get Hinata worked up?"

I turned towards Kiba who was holding a very tired Akamaru in his arms. "No, I was telling the truth. I overheard Kakashi talking to Kurenai-sensei about Naruto's and Sasuke's injuries."

"Are they serious?"

"No, like I said, they are only minor injuries."

"Did they complete the mission?"

"Yeah, the mission was a complete success."

"I think I might go visit them soon then. After me and Akamaru get some rest of course." Kiba had on a big toothy smile and Akamaru barked in union.

I giggled, "Alright, tell Hinata, when you see her, that there will be no practice tomorrow."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, you guys earned it."

Kiba shifted Akamaru in his arms so he could make a punch in the in the air. After making a Whooping noise he said a quick 'thank you' and ran off. I turned to Shino who was walking away to join the others. I was all by myself now with nothing to do. I walked over to the nearest tree and plopped down on the grass. I looked up at the sky and watched the clouds swirl and dance slowly in the sky.

I don't know how long I have been sitting there, just watching the clouds but I did know that soon those clouds started getting dark and was accompanied with stars. I let out a sigh and stood up. I brushed my clothed down from the too-small-to-see dirt and started heading home.

*the next day*

I woke up to a bright light shining in through the window and cursed myself for not closing the shades before heading to bed last night. I threw a pillow over my head and rolled over to block the sunlight. The plan seemed to have worked but, to my luck, someone started banging on my door.

I groaned out in protest and threw the pillow at the bedroom door knowing full well that the knocking was coming from the front door. The knocking stopped and I let out a sigh and closed my eyes again but opened them again when the banging started up again only louder.

I jumped out of bed and sulked to the door, I opened it with anger in my eyes. Whoever it was they were going to die. I looked up at the face of… Naruto? _Why would Naruto be at my door this early in the morning?_

I looked over his shoulder and noticed Shikamaru was standing behind him with an impatient look on his face. I looked back over to Naruto and growled, "What do you want that could be so important that you had to wake me up?"

Naruto didn't say anything, just stood in my doorway and stared at… my body? I looked down and noticed that I was only wearing my shirt and my underwear. My hair wasn't a complete mess, unlike most people my hair doesn't get messed up too bad whenever I slept, but it was still out of its ponytail and hanging low and wavy down to my waist. I looked back up to Naruto who had started getting a bloody nose from my almost nudity. I struck the back of his head with my open palm and turned around into the house to get dressed.

I walked back out with my normal cloths no more than a minute later. Shikamaru was the one in my doorway now while Naruto stood behind him holding the back of his head. "Now, tell me what you want before I get impatient."

Shikamaru gave out a sigh and looked me straight in the eye before continuing, "Sasuke is missing, wither it be from running away or kid napped we can't quite be sure at the point but we need all the help we can get to bring him back to Konoha. Will you help us?"

"Oh. My. God," I said with big eyes.

"I know-"Shikamaru continued but was cut off when I continued to speak.

"That is the most I have ever heard you say at one time."

"Lynne! This is a serious matter!" Naruto yelled out from behind Shikamaru. Naruto pushed the brown-haired boy out of the way and started yelling right in my face, "Sasuke is missing and we need all the help to get him back and all you're doing is making jokes. You have got to be the biggest, hugest, most-"I covered Naruto mouth by putting my hand over his face.

I let out a yawn, "Shut up Naruto, you're yelling isn't helping him and it sure isn't going to make me help you if you're going to insult me the whole time." I looked at Shikamaru and continued. "Alright, I'll help you but I'm going to do things my way so no arguing and telling me what to do. Got that?" Shikamaru nodded and I could feel Naruto's head moving from under my hand indicating that he agreed to my terms. I let him go and he fell back onto the floor and landed on his back. He propped himself on his elbows, giving me a glare. "Also, I don't want to be insulted or yelled at the whole trip, there and back." I fixed Naruto with one of my scariest glares, "That means you too."

Naruto gulped and looked down while nodding. I heard him murmur out, "Anything to get Sasuke back."

I turned on my heels and walked into the house only to emerge again in a matter of a few minutes with my hair up into a ponytail, a medical kit, and my hip back filled with sharp Kunai and shuriken along with a few paper bombs just in case. I looked at Shikamaru and Naruto one more time before nodding to show that I was ready to leave. Naruto turned around and started running down the street. I turned to Shikamaru with a questioning look, "Where is he going? The village gates are the other way."

Shikamaru sighed and simply started that I need to get to the gates and wait for everyone to show up while he and Naruto gather more recruiters for the mission. I nodded again in understanding and turned around, heading for the gates.

It wasn't long before everyone who was going on the mission was at the gates. Neji, Kiba with Akamaru, Choji, and Naruto were all standing next to me while listening to Shikamaru's instructions and information about the mission at hand.

Naruto was acting instead of thinking as usual and started running off before Shikamaru finished going over the plans. I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and threw him in the direction of the group. He looked up at me, angry and about ready to yell, when I crossed my arms in front of my chest and glared down at him. "You don't even know what the plan is or where, exactly, we're going. Why, in the world, would you just run off like that without even thinking?"

Naruto opened his mouth to reply but, for once, nothing came out. He closed his mouth again and glared at me, knowing that I was right. I looked over at Shikamaru who thanked me and then turned to the rest of the group to finish giving us the layout of the plan and going over the equipment one last time to make sure that we had everything that we needed.

With one last nod from everyone we set off in Sasuke's direction. I was in the middle of the group because I didn't have any 'special' talents for the mission. Though they said that I had great fighting skills and had great eyesight with my 'Dragon Eye Jutsu' they had Neji so they wouldn't want to use up my chakra. Which was alright by me, it just meant less work on me now so I can use it later.

It had been a while since we had set out on the mission when we came across four ninja, one of which had two heads, another hand four arms, the third was a girl, and the other was huge and held a coffin on his back. Neji clearly stated that Sasuke was in the coffin. That news made Naruto even angrier than before.

One of them had stopped and started making hand signals, before we knew what had happened walls of dirt started closing in around us and closing us in. Naruto and Kiba started banging on the walls but only succeeded in tiring themselves out. Shikamaru plopped down on the ground and clasped his hands on his lap in a cage of fingers. I've known Shikamaru long enough that he only does that when he's thinking of a strategy. _Good, we're going to need one if we want to get out of here._

I looked over to the wall and placed my hand on it to feel the smooth surface yet have it be rough because of the packed dirt. I looked back at the group, Naruto and Kiba were doing everything they could to break the walls but failed, Neji was using his Byakugan to look for something – what that may be I don't know- Choji was sitting on the ground in a corner eating a bag of potato chips and lastly Shikamaru was sitting in the center, still thinking.

I could feel the energy draining from my body. _How could this be? I haven't even done anything yet._

I looked back over to Neji who was looking at me with a questioning look. "What?" I asked, finally getting annoyed and irritable. _Being stuck in a tight, hot place with five other people will do that to a person. _

"You're chakra, I haven't seen anything like it before," Neji stated with amazement. "I mean, I've seen it before, but only one time, and that was when Naruto and I were fighting in the Chunin Exams."

Everyone stopped what they were doing except for Choji and Shikamaru, and stared at me. _Oh, Shit! Neji can see Ka Ryu's chakra. _

**Yes he can. Your chakra is being sucked away at this very moment and to fill in for that gap I have been lending you my chakra.**

_Why?_

**Why what? Why is your chakra being drained or why am I letting you have my chakra?**

_Um… both?_

I could hear Ka Ryu sigh, **because the dome around us is sucking the chakra right from your bodies. If I didn't give you some of my chakra you would have eventually collapsed from chakra loss. **

_Oh._

I looked back over to all of the curious faces who were just inches from my face. "Could you back off a little, I'm getting Closterphobic right now with everyone so close." I tried to back up but I was already flat against the walls.

"Why is that, Lynne?" Neji asked.

"Because you're getting really close and I feel like I can't breathe."

"Not that, we can understand the Closterphoia," Kiba said while rolling his eyes, "we just want to know about the chakra."

"Oh, that." I looked down at my feet. After a minute of staring at my feet I looked back up at the group who had surrounded me. Shikamaru and Choji were still doing their own thing and I was glade, it just meant two less people in my breathing space. "This isn't really about me, this is about Sasuke, remember?"

"Come on, Lynne, stop stalling and tell us."

"No, I can't."

"You can't, or you won't?"

"I guess both."

"Why is that?" Naruto asked this time.

"Well, the Third Hokage told me not to tell anyone," I watched as everyone went silent at the mention of the Third Hokage. "Plus, if you guys found out you wouldn't treat me the same. You'd think I was a monster."

"Not true," I snapped my head to where Naruto was yelling. "Look at me, everyone thought I was a monster and you didn't, so why would you think that I would think, for one second, that you were a monster?"

I looked at the ground, not wanting to look anyone in the eyes, "Because it's true."

"No it's not, you were always nice to everyone, grant that they be nice to you," Kiba said. Akamaru barked and jumped from Kiba's shoulder and over to me. He looked up at me and gave me the puppy-dog eyes and whimpered. "Akamaru loves you, and not just him, but we all do. We're your friends."

I looked up towards everyone. Neji was leaning back while Naruto and Kiba, both, were smiling away. Shikamaru and Choji both looked up from what they were doing and smiled too. I gave a smile back, "Fine, I trust you guys." I took a deep breath and prepared myself before plowing on. "The reason I have another set of chakra flow is because I'm like Naruto. Though he may not be one of the legendary 'Tailed-Beasts' I, too, have a demon inside of me." I looked around and took in all of the faces. Expecting to see anger but only say shock, but they soon turned to smiles. _Smiles, why are there smiling?_

"Is that all?" Kiba asked.

I looked up with shock written all over my face, "'Is that all?' How can you say that? I just spilled my deepest secret and all you have to say for it is, 'is that all?'"

Naruto stepped in from of Kiba seeing as how I was clenching my fists. "Well, yeah. I mean, it's not bad to have a demon inside of you. Just because you have a monster inside of you doesn't mean you're a monster. I mean, just look at Gaara, he's not a monster and he's killed lots of people."

I looked at Naruto dead in the eye, "So have I, that's why I left, to start over."

"And we understand that Lynne," Kiba said from behind Naruto. "We're just saying that it's no big deal."

I wanted to take a step back but was stopped by the wall of the dome, "really? You don't care that I've killed maybe hundreds of people?"

"Well no, not really. We've seen you kill before. But you've always had a reason, so I bet that the other times you've killed you had a reason to kill them too."

I looked around again at the group and say all the smiles. "So, are you guys still my friends?"

"Of course!" Naruto and Kiba yelled at the same time and hugged me. Akamaru ran around in circles at my feet and Shikamaru, Choji, and Neji stood back and nodded their heads. Soon everyone was standing in a circle, looking tired and weak. Naruto and Kiba looked to be nearing their end while Choji, Neji, and Shikamaru looked still fairly strong. I was trying to heal Naruto and Kiba as much as I could while Shikamaru was coming up with a plan… hopefully.

Hope you all liked the next chapter, I was trying to find a way for everone to findout about Ka Ryu and Neji seemed the most logical way. so sorry if this all looks rushed, i was trying to finish the next chapter for you guys! Yay, don't you feel speacial?

Lynne: *Cough* Ed! *Cough*

Me: What was that Lynne? I couldn't hear you over the coughing, maybe you should get a doctor to check that out?

Lynne: Nope, I'm fine *Cough* LOSER! *Cough*

Me: alright! I heard you that time and I'm not going to pretend that I didn't!

Lynne: So what? What are YOU going to do about it? Wimp!

Me: Thats it! *Tackles Lynne to the ground*

Gaara: Hey, how come I'm not in this chapter?

Me:*Holds Lynne in a head lock and looks at Gaara* Stop being a baby! It's not always about you!

Gaara: Then who is it about?

Lynne: ME!

Me: Nope! wrong! Its' about ME! So Shut up so I can close this chapter!

Lynne and Gaara: Geez! Alright already!

Me: Thank you! Next chapter will be up when i feel like it. And as Always...

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	9. Making Decisions

Sorry for the lateness, I've been busy and had lots of problems but thats okay. This is deticated to my mom because 1.) today is her birthday, 2.)she supported the fact that i make stories (even yaoi stories), and 3.)she lets me on the computer from 6 in the morning to 10 at night. lol ^w^

Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER! I do not own or work for Naruto, therefore i don't own any of the charaters in this story... except for Lynne.

**Chapter 9**

**Making Decisions**

We've been in this damned dome for almost a half hour when Shikamaru opened his eyes again. Choji has eaten through four bags of chips and Neji had finally started to break a sweat. Naruto and Kiba looked close to passing out and I, too, have looked flushed and drained.

Every scratch, dent, mark, and hole Naruto and Kiba made was reforming and fixing itself. We weren't getting anywhere with this except tired. Kiba stood up and Akamaru lay at his feet, whimpering. "I give us about 10 more minutes of this before our chakras completely drained."

Shikamaru stood up and looked to a wall in the dome. "Hey out there! Let me talk to your leader, I've got a deal to propose." Shikamaru shouted so to be over heard by the Ninja's outside. "What I'm thinking is you let us out of this thing and in return we let you keep Sasuke."

"But, Shikamaru, what are you doing?" Naruto asked with confusion written all over his face.

_What is Shikamaru thinking? He led this whole mission only to give up here? No way, there has to be a plan behind this._

**Oh, you're right about that Lynne. Just watch.** Ka Ryu said before his chuckling started to fade away.

"No deal, I've never let a captive go before," came a voice from the other side of the dome, "and I'm not about to start now."

"Aww, come on," Shikamaru continued. "Listen, how about you just let me go and keep the others." Naruto's eyes widened at the comment Shikamaru made and Kiba started to grind his teeth together. "All this fighting, I'm tired of it. It's really not my thing. "

Kiba snapped, "You little, you're selling us out! I'm going to ring your neck!"

Shikamaru just stood there, not even looking in Kiba's direction. "Shut up Kiba, for once in your life."

Kiba took a step forward and raised his clenched fists, "What did you say?" Kiba was getting close to punching Shikamaru.

That's when we heard it; it was a deep chuckling noise coming from the other side again. "So much for team work. So you're really the leader, huh? Way to set a fine example to the rest of your team. You see a man's true character when he is pushed to the edge of death. But you're hardly a man at all, certainly not one who's worthy of leading a team of ninja into battle." Choji was getting pretty pissed off and I could hear his teeth grinding from the other side of the dome. But the voice seemed to continue. "Sacrificing Sasuke and the rest of your squad, ha. So that's how a leaf Chunin acts? Did you really believe I might let you out? You deserve to die."

"That does it Shikamaru," Naruto yelled, "you dirty little traitor. Let's take this outside, just you and me!"

Kiba walked over next to Naruto, "What do you mean take this outside? How are you going to do that you idiot? We're trapped in here."

Naruto growled and turned to Kiba, "What did you just call me?"

Kiba grabbed Naruto by the collar of his jacket, "I called you an idiot, idiot!"

Naruto grabbed Kiba into a head lock and started yelling in Kiba's ear, "That's what I thought you said."

Choji looked over to the two, "Guys, that's enough! Everybody just shut up!" That make Naruto and Kiba stop in their tracks. _Wow, who knew Choji had it in him? _I thought.

Naruto let go of Kiba, who stood up straight, "Choji?" I looked over toward Shikamaru who was in is thinking pose again, and then back to Choji who was eating another bag of chips. Naruto noticed this too and started asking questions. "Is that all you think about?"

"That's Choji for you, conspires to a crisis by stuffing his face. He's a real big help." Kiba retorted. I was getting tired of this. _Why was everyone fighting? Can't they see that Shikamaru is planning something and Choji is just trying to help? Of course not, because boys are idiots… well, with a few exceptions. _

Naruto turned his back on Choji, "forget this; I'm going to give Shadow Clones a try."

Neji stepped up and spoke for the first time since the fight. "Don't bother, that ninja has incased this wall with chakra so that it repairs itself. Your Shadow Clones won't work; you'll only deplete your own chakra. The fact is, multiple attacks won't work. Our only chance is a Taijustu strong enough to destroy it in one blow."

Kiba looked over to where Choji was eating, "Well Choji has a Taijustu with a knock-out punch even stronger than mine, but just look at him. He's got other things on his mind."

Naruto turned around to face Choji again, "Come on, what are we going to do? Just stand here?"

That's when I noticed Shikamaru open his eyes and lift his head up. "Neji, I need you to focus those eyes of your on the wall directly behind you and directly behind Choji. Do you think you have enough Chakra for that?"

"I think so."

Naruto stomped a foot on the ground and raised a clenched fist, "Hold on, you're not going to listen to him?"

Choji stopped eating and stepped forward. "Naruto! You still don't get it, do you? Don't you remember what Shikamaru said when we came together as a team?" Naruto looked over to Choji again.

***Flash Back***

Shikamaru was stand in front of the group after going over the plan. "I know I usually seem like a pretty lazy guy, but not today. 'Cause now I'm responsible for your lives too."

***End Flash Back* **

Shikamaru looked over towards Choji, "Okay Choji, try and keep your voice down, will yah?" Shikamaru turned towards Kiba and continued. "Kiba, are you up to putting another dent in that wall behind Choji?"

Kiba looked confused but agreed to it anyway. Kiba bent his knees and clapped his hands together in front of his face, "I don't know what's going on but I'm always up for going wild." Kiba jumped into the air and started spinning so fast that he resembled a drill bit. "Tunneling Fang." Kiba hit the wall directly behind Choji with a loud blast, bringing up a cloud of smoke with it. When Kiba finally stopped and land on the ground, huffing and sucking in air, there were several large dents in the walls.

Neji looked from one side of the wall to the other with his Byakugan. I looked at the dents too and noticed that one of the dents was healing slower than the others and at one point completely stopped.

Naruto looked over to Neji who was looking at the same spot that I was. Shikamaru looked at the groups and continued with his plan. "Alright, Neji, mark the spot with your kunai, will yah?" Shikamaru looked at Choji and continued again, "Choji, ready buddy?"

Choji stepped forward and smiled, "Shikamaru, I was born ready."

Shikamaru smiled, "Good, then let's get started."

Naruto looked from Choji to Shikamaru, "wait, let's get what started?"

Neji looked up toward Naruto, "As I said a moment ago, this wall surrounding us has been infused with chakra," Neji pulled a kunai out of his pouch and lifted it up to his face. "However, the strength of the chakra won't be uniform. Some points in the wall must be weaker than the others. Shikamaru was able to figure that out."

Naruto thought about it for a second, "He did, really? You could have fooled me. When the heck was this?"

Neji looked a little impatient but continued the lecture, "He's been watching, and taking league. For example, when Kiba and Akamaru were attacking the wall, while you were watching he was studying the wall. He observed that some areas repaired more slowly than others." Neji took a side step and threw the kunai across the dome and stuck it into a hole on the other side that we were looking at earlier. "That led him to suspect that it was those points that it was the weakest." Shikamaru smiled and nodded in agreement to Neji's statement. "Still, he needed to be sure. That's why he spoke to our captor as he did. It was a rouse, to trick him into giving away his position. And it worked, confirming that Shikamaru's suspicions were correct. The band of chakra running through the walls are the thinnest and the weakest the point opposite of his position." Neji looked over to Shikamaru, "That's about right, isn't it?"

Everyone looked towards Shikamaru who nodded and chuckled in agreement. _Man, he's smarter that I gave him credit for. Did you know about this plan?_

**Yes, all along. **

_Then why didn't you tell me?_

**Because I didn't have to, Neji did that for me.**

_Well, thank you!_ I thought with sarcasm dripping from every word.

Everyone looked over to Choji, "Okay Choji, it's up to you," Shikamaru prompted.

Choji made a hand sign in front of his chest, "Okay." There was a puff of smoke and Choji's body started to expand until he resembled a ball. "Expansion Jutsu! Alright, here we go." Choji's limbs started to retract and disappear into his clothing and body, making him perfectly round. "Human Boulder!"

Choji started rolling and hitting the wall where the kunai was. Dust and dirt were flying everywhere. Choji just kept drilling into the wall. After only a few seconds Choji broke through the barrier and fresh air hit my face.

All six of us jumped out of the dome of dirt and stood in a line on the other side facing our captor. The rest of the walls rumbled into the ground leaving the fat man just standing there with his arms out, holding nothing.

Shikamaru smiled, "well Choji, there is just no other way of saying it. That was awesome." Choji smiled wide and chuckled like he was in front of an endless, free buffet. But a closer look showed me that Choji was running out of energy and chakra; his breaths were coming out in huffs and puffs. "He's by himself, guess the others went ahead."

Neji looked left to right with his Byakugan and confirmed that the others are nowhere to be seen. "Swell, and just when I thought we had caught up to them," Shikamaru ranted.

_How the hell are we supposed to catch up with them now?_

I was pulled out of my thoughts when we all heard a clapping noise coming from the fat man across the field. "Not a bad bit of handy work you guys," said the man while he smiled at us like a chestier cat, "for a bunch of losers."

Both Naruto and Kiba took a step forward, "What?" yelled Naruto.

"Who are you calling a bunch of losers?" yelled Kiba. Both Naruto and Kiba started charging toward the ninja. "Now that we're out, you're toast pal!"

"Out of the way," Naruto yelled next to Kiba, "this guy is mine!"

I was about to stop both of the idiots but a voice, coming from next to me, stopped me in my tracks. "Will you two stop?" I looked over to the source and found Neji glaring at the two knuckle-heads. Both Naruto and Kiba stopped in their tracks and looked back to Neji. "There's no way we can defeat him head-on. It's too dangerous."

"We just tore through this clown's barrier, how tough can he be?" Kiba asked. Kiba then made a hand sign and bent over to touch the ground. He then jumped into the air and started spinning like earlier. "Tunneling Fang!" but the move was stopped dead in its tracks when the man raised his arm and pushed Kiba backwards.

Naruto then jumped over Kiba's body and made an almost similar hand sign. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Suddenly there were two Naruto's coming at the man. Both of them pulled back their fist with an intention to punch the ninja. "Get a load of this you gorilla!" but Naruto's attack was also stopped by the man.

He pushed the real Naruto into a tree and head butted the clone in one swift movement. The clone disappeared in a puff of smoke. "I'm going to eat you guys for lunch."

Kiba stood up and faced the man, "Try it."

That made him even angrier and he charged the whole group. He slammed into Kiba and made him fall back a few feet. "Shoulder Charge." Naruto then jumped up and made a hand sign but the man kneed him in the gut before the Jutsu was activated, "Special Kick." Now both Naruto and Kiba lay in a heap on the ground. The man bent his knees and made a hand sign, "You guy's wouldn't even do as an appetizer."

Shikamaru stepped forward to address the group, "Carful everyone, this guy is just getting warmed up."

The man then slammed his hand down on the ground. The ground then started to crumble and knocked Naruto back some more. "Earth Style Barrier; Earth's Gold Prison!" the ground started to shake some more.

Choji then Jumped in front of the whole group and made a hand sign, "Expansion Jutsu; Human Boulder!" Choji's limbs retracted again and his body started to spin. A cloud of dust came up and made a cover for us to hide.

When the dust died down the man stood up straight and grunted, "Hardly worth the effort." He then looked from left to right.

*Elsewhere*

We were hiding in a bush not far from the sight. We were all sitting in a tight circle and were going over what we should do next. "We're running out of time," said Shikamaru. "There's no choice, we gotta split up."

"What would be the point in that?" asked Naruto.

"No, he's right," Neji activated his Byakugan and looked in the direction of where the man was. "With all our chakra taken away, even with the five of us against him, he's not going to be easy to take out. And with every second that passes Sasuke gets closer to the boarder. Once he crosses it, it'll all be out of our hands. So we should split into two groups, one to stop him and one to follow Sasuke."

Shikamaru nodded his head in agreement, "You'll head the second team, okay Neji?"

All of a sudden the ground started to shake and we heard a loud yell come from behind us. I looked over my shoulder to get a glance at who was yelling but caught sight of a tree falling down, getting ready to crush both me and Naruto. Naruto jumped out of the way and landed next to Choji while I landed next to Neji.

"So there you are," the man smiled at us.

Shikamaru turned to Neji, "Neji, you take Kiba, Lynne and Choji with you to go after Sasuke."

Neji nodded his head, "You've got it."

Choji scrunched up his nose. Shikamaru made a hand sign, "Naruto, you and I will take this guy."

The man kept smiling at us, "What are you going to do, play with my shadow again? Don't waste my time kid. You already showed me your parlor trick and once was enough."

Shikamaru let out one chuckle, "That's funny; I seem to remember someone around here getting taken in by that parlor trick."

I looked over and saw a line of black shadow moving over to the ninja, but it was stopped just before it could reach the man. I noticed that another black line was coming up from behind the man this time but he didn't seem to notice that.

The man turned and chuckled at Shikamaru, but just before the shadow reached his shadow he slammed his fist down on the ground and sent up a cloud of dust and dirt. When the dust died down Neji activated his Byakugan again, "He's disappeared."

Kiba sniffed that air. After getting a good sniff he snapped his head to the left and yelled, "He's behind us!"

Everyone looked and sure enough there he was. He slammed a hand down on the ground again and lifted up a huge chunk of the ground the size of the perimeter around the Hokage's office, "Earth Style; Sphere of Rage!" He then threw the large boulder at us.

"Are you insane?" Naruto screamed at the man.

The boulder started to barrel towards us, of course. We all jumped out of the way just in time before it could flatten us. When the boulder finally came to a stop all six of us landed in front of it. Shikamaru looked from left to right but the fat guy had disappeared.

The ground started to shake again, "Heads up you guys," Shikamaru yelled. "There's another one coming."

That's when a hand popped out of the ground rite beneath Shikamaru. He jumped but wasn't fast enough and was grabbed by the ankle as the man jumped out of the ground. When he had finally gotten all the way out he was holding Shikamaru by both ankles, up-side-down.

Nobody dared move in fear that the man would kill Shikamaru, "Your in charge of this rag-tag bunch, am I right? When you've got an idiot for a leader the whole team suffers." The man smiled at his own comment, "know what I mean?" I looked over when I heard an audible growl coming from Choji, but the man kept on talking like it was nothing, "you don't want to follow a guy like this. " The man then started to swing Shikamaru around in a circle above his head. "Let me just get rid of him for yah."

With that the man chucked Shikamaru over towards the forest line. We could only watch him as he got closer to hitting the trees with every second. That's when Choji yelled "Expansion Jutsu; Human Boulder." He then started to spin over towards the spot where Shikamaru was supposed to hit a tree but instead bounced off Choji's stomach.

Shikamaru landed with a flip, "Thanks Choji."

"Aww," We all looked back over towards the man again. "I try to help you guys out and look what you do. I don't know which is more pathetic, the fool or those who follow them."Tell you what, you don't want to keep working under this glommed face, little, shadow lover. I'll just kill you now and put you out of your misery."

Naruto Stepped toward him "It's time for you to shut your big mouth. Or I'll come shut it for you."

"NARUTO!" I looked back towards Choji who was getting up. "I'll handle him. This guy is mine."

The man's smiled fell off of his face. Everyone looked towards Choji as if he were crazy. "What the heck are you talking about?" Naruto yelled. "This isn't the type of guy you can take on your own."

"He's mine I said."

"Yeah, but Choji, you…"

Choji grabbed for a pouch out of his bag and held it out to Shikamaru, "Shikamaru, take these food pills for everyone."

"Choji, you're not gonna?"

"Uh huh," It was obvious that whatever they were talking about wasn't good but Choji only stood there with a smile on his face. "Don't worry; I've got my secret weapon with me."

Shikamaru grabbed the pouch but continued to worry, despite Choji's words. "Yeah, but Choji, this is…" Shikamaru's train of thought was trailed off as Choji just walked on ahead.

The man was standing in the same spot but was now holding a hand on his hip. "Oh, well this is priceless. You think I'm gonna wait forever?" The fat man then charged after us once more, but Choji was ahead of it already and stepped out in front of us. He then grabbed for something out of his bag and pulled out a case with three colored pills in the shape of balls in it, one green, the second yellow and the other red. "Hurry up, get going."

He then opened the top to the green pill and threw it into his mouth and started to chew.

"Get out of my way you joke," came the fat man as he got closer. There was a loud bam as Choji stopped the man in the middle of his charge. _Wow, Choji is just full of surprises today._

"Shikamaru, get everybody and get out of here," Choji's voice was strained but we could all hear the urgency in the request. "What did the six of us fight together for? If we lose Sasuke we'll be just what this guy says we are, a stupid idiot of a leader and a band of rejects." Choji was holding onto the man the whole time he was talking. The man looked like he was shocked that he could be stopped so easily.

Shikamaru closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He then opened his eyes, "You better catch up with us Choji, you hear me?"

"Yeah, Yeah I hear, go already." Choji yelled one last time.

"Alright, let's move you guys!" Shikamaru ordered. Everyone yelled right and jumped off into the direction of Sasuke.

I stayed and looked over towards Choji, "Good luck Choji! Kick his ass for me too."

"Will do, just go!" I nodded my head even though I knew he couldn't see it and then jumped off to join the others.

Hope You enjoyed the next chapter, i wanted to take it all the way to the point that they (Lynne and naruto) meet Kimimaru but this just took so long. and i made it this way because the plot was good and i didnt want to mess it up. so sorry if you hate it this way.

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	10. Making Decisions II

**Chapter 10**

**Joined Alliance**

We were all running through the tree tops now, trying desperately to catch up to Sasuke. Shikamaru threw a bag at Naruto, "Here, a gift from Choji. Eat up." Naruto looked down and the bag and grabbed whatever was in it.

The bag was passed around to everyone and when it got to me I looked into the sack to see what exactly was in there. There were a few Chakra pills inside so I grabbed a couple and handed to bag on to the next person. I didn't need them now so I just put them into my hip bag for later.

"Are you sure Choji is going to be okay?" I asked out loud.

Shikamaru looked at me with a smirk on his face, "Choji is strong, stronger than me, Kiba, Neji, and everyone else here. He'll make it out alive."

"For his sake, I hope your right," I muttered to myself.

The rest of the way was pretty quiet between us all, only saying a few things about Choji doing fine and our enemies underestimating us. Occasionally we would stop to mark a tree as to where we were heading so Choji could meet up with us when he was finished with his battle. We all had high hopes for our chubby comrade.

It wasn't long before we came across the other ninjas. Shikamaru insisted that he should go and transform himself into the ninja named Jirobo. He quickly caught up to them and went along for a few minutes. They started to talk but I couldn't hear them from this distance. It wasn't until they stopped that I had a feeling that something was wrong.

The Ninja with six arms stayed behind while the other two ran ahead with the coffin. That's when I knew for certain that our cover had been blown. Shikamaru, disguised at Jirobo attacked the six-armed man but was blocked. The brunette then shot a web through his mouth at Shikamaru, making him stick to the tree not far away.

The man had a smile on his face until Naruto jumped out of his hiding spot and ambushed him from behind. "Surprised to see me?" came an echoing voice that came out of all of the clones' mouths at once. The man was quick though and jumped away while making a giant ball of sticky web. He threw it into the air and caught all of the clones and Naruto along with it.

Kiba and Akamaru did a quick 'Fang over Fang' while the man was still in mid-air, missing him by a few inches when he pulled on a few webs that he could have made earlier. Kiba and Akamaru both landed on opposite branches. "I won't let you get away," yelled Kiba from his branch.

The brunette started laughing at both of them. "You stole my line, punk. You should look down at your feet."

Kiba did and noticed right away that there were webs all over the branch, making his feet stick. "You coward, do you really think you could stop us that easily?"

"Why don't you shut up?" Smirked the tanned man. That's when Neji jumped out of his hiding spot in the trees and tried a gentle fist on him. At the last second the man let go of his web and dodged the attack. The man fastened himself to the bottom of a nearby branch and spun another big web at Neji, encasing him in the sticky mess.

I took that as my queue and jumped out of my hiding spot with my Dragon sword at my side. Seeing me coming from his left he quickly jumped to the right and dodged my blade that sliced through the branch he was standing on like a hot knife through butter.

I did a quick flip to recover myself and propelled off of the trunk of a nearby tree towards another tree to my left. The man pulled a few more webs and threw them at the tree I was at. Barely missing the sticky trap by a few inches. I jumped into the air and sliced at the man once again only to miss him by a hair when he pulled another web on his right hand.

I turned around to do another attack but instead saw another web headed my way. I stuck my sword out into a nearby tree and pulled so that it had lodged itself deep into the bark. I heaved myself up and just narrowly missed the web again.

I was now standing on my sword that was stuck in the tree trunk, while the man was hovering in the air by his web. "You're not half bad."

I huffed and pulled out a few shurikens from my hip bag, "I'll remember that when I'm at your funeral!" I yelled out before throwing all four shurikens at him while jumping down to dislodge my sword from the tree. But as soon as it was cleared a web shot out of nowhere and trapped me to the tree the sword was stuck in no more than a second ago, the irony.

It looked like the shuriken decoy wasn't long enough. "Lynne!" shouted Naruto from his encasement. I looked over at Neji and noticed he was still struggling to get away from the webs.

"How would you like to see the inside of an airtight cocoon?" The man pulled on a few webs which covered Neji in layers upon layers of web.

One of Naruto's clones grabbed a kunai from a bag and tried to cut through the web but failed. "What is this web made of? I can't cut it."

"It's useless; my spider silk is so powerful nothing can break it. Two elephants can't pull it apart." The man explained. He then muttered to himself and started to chew his jaws up and down like he was chewing on a piece of gum. He then jumped down to a branch close to where Naruto was still suck. He raised all six of his arms up to his mouth and pulled out yellow colored web instead of the usual white. He broke off the webs and they instantly started to solidify and form into boomerang shaped weapons with tiny spines on the sides. "Since you'll be my first victim, let's make this entertaining. I'm going to play a little game to figure out with one of you is the real one."

One of Naruto's clones spoke up, "What did you just say?"

"Contestant one, let's try you at the end," he then threw one of the yellow weapons at Naruto only for it to be a clone. "Oh, well. Looks like he was a clone, no problem, let's try another." Throwing another weapon he hit another clone in the stomach before it dispersed into smoke. "Whichever you are, your pretty luck, this time let's try two at a time, so that the odds will be doubled in my favor." The man was laughing by now while chucking another set of weapons at two more clones in the web. They dispersed with a puff of clouds. "You are a very lucky guy, you know that? But this next time I got a 50/50 shot. Here it comes." He then threw yet another weapon a Naruto only for it to be a clone.

The man was frowning now, "Well, somehow he made it all the way to the bitter end. Well, weakling, it was fun playing with you, but unfortunately the games over for you now. Now die!" He threw his last weapon at the remaining Naruto. It stuck itself deep into his thigh, "One down and four to go." Naruto disappeared into a puff of smoke making the tanned man frown and confused. "Wait, where did he-?"

Naruto Jumped out from behind his real hiding spot and made to punch the man, only for him to block it and get pushed back. Both Shinobi landed on a branch facing the other. "Looks like he's not so dumb after all," muttered the brunette. "However, it looks like you're at the end of your rope." The man then pulled on a stringy web that had stuck it's self to Naruto's arm, emphasizing his bad pun.

Neji jumped out of nowhere and sliced his hand through the web, breaking it in two. "How did he-?" Was the only thing that left the stunned mans mouth before Neji grabbed Naruto up and placed him on a branch where the rest of us stood, free from our traps.

"I trapped you, how did you get free?"

"Your spider web had a chakra base, and chakra built substances doesn't stand a chance against my gentle fist attack. Go on you guys, I'll take care of him."

Akamaru began to whimper and shiver. Kiba bent down to see what was wrong with his friend when Akamaru suddenly jumped into Kiba's jacket, hiding from the treat. "Looks like this guy is stronger than that big guy we fought before," Kiba stated, "Much stronger."

"We're going to have to go one on one to have any chance of success." Neji said, never taking his eyes off of the other man. "Isn't that was you said?"

"Yeah," Shikamaru answered back, "that's what we agreed."

"And besides, if we all stayed here we won't be able to catch up with Sasuke."

"But, what about Choji?" Kiba piped back up, "He hasn't come back." Akamaru barked in agreement.

"We all embarked on this mission to find Sasuke and bring him back home to the village. But that's not the only reason that we've come. We are on this mission to protect a fellow Shinobi, to defend the bond of the hidden leaf village. At the third Hokage's funeral, when Iruka spoke, do you remember his words?"

*Flash back*

_The sky was cloudy, as dim as the mood that everyone was in. The third had just passed away and everyone was attending the funeral. Everybody was dressing in bleak clothing, showing that they were as depressed on the outside as they were on the inside. _

_"Iruka-sensei?" Naruto asked through the silence. "Why do they do it? Why do people risk their lives for other people?"_

_Iruka looked at the always cheerful boy who was now tainted with sadness and grief. "Well, when someone passes away, it's the end. His past and future, all the dreams he once had, and they disappear along with him. This is true, even if he dies honorably in battle, as so many have, as high as they did. All the ties that bind to him are severed, all but one, the most important of all, people, parents, siblings, friends, lovers, the people who are important to him. And these people, the ones who are left behind, are joined together in a great circle by their shared memories of him. A circle of friendship, trust, and sacrifice that grows stronger and larger as time passes. It's hard to explain it; we remain in a circle together. We have no choice. It's important to us._

*End flash back*

"Listen, Sasuke is out there right now," Neji continued, "Heading towards Orochimaru. We can't allow such evil to take someone from our village. That is not our way. Once more," Neji turned and looked Naruto in the eye, keeping their hold. Smirking, Neji continued once again. "Naruto, sometimes your eyes are even better than mine." Neji turned away from Naruto, "Wherever he is, Sasuke is in the darkness. Now, get going, I'll be right behind you."

We all agreed in our own way and started off for Sasuke, looking back at Neji one last time before disappearing out of sight.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, as you can see, this is the boring part that has to be done, unfortunately. :(

But Chapter 11 will be up soon, hopefully.

I WANT REVIEWS! Im a real review whore, and i don't have enough reviews to feel motivated enough to write more.


	11. Making Decisions III

**Chapter 11**

**Making Decisions III**

We were off again, desperate to catch up to Sasuke before they crossed the border. "Well, guys," Kiba said, turning to face us while running through the tree tops, "looks like it's just the four of us left now."

"I don't think you have to worry about that. Choji and Neji are going to catch up in no time," Naruto exclaimed excitedly. "Choji's got his triumph card with him. And don't forget, I fought Neji in the Chunin Exams, so I know."

Kiba looked back at Naruto questionably, "You know what?"

Naruto smiled, "That guy; he' a true genius."

We continued on in silence, hoping our comrades would make it. It was getting near sunset when Kiba turned to look at us, "We're close."

Shikamaru smiled, "There's only two of them left, against the four of us. I like those odds. If we play it right the next time we meet them we'll be able to wrap things up once and for all."

"I'll say," Naruto yelled, "Two against four, no sweat!"

"What do you mean it's two against four?" Kiba asked, making Akamaru bark.

"Opps, sorry about that Akamaru," Shikamaru laughed, "It's two against five, I like those odds even better."

"Wait till they see our new technique, those clowns won't know what hit them. Right boy?" Akamaru barked in response.

"Don't worry about a thing, As soon as we catch up to them all I got to do is my Shadow Clone Jutsu and the shows over."

"Well that's comforting to know," Shikamaru said in a monotone voice. "All the same, we're working as a team here, right? Just stick to the plan."

"Oh, well… sure," Naruto said, quickly losing his before-fight spunk.

"The most important thing is to at least get them in range before the sun goes down."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Kiba said quickly. "Let's hit it!" we all started to go at a faster pace. It wasn't until it started to get dark that Kiba spoke up again. "Hurry, they're just up ahead."

"No," Shikamaru insisted, "We're close enough. We'll stay right on their trail, but we're going to maintain this distance."

"What the heck are you talking about?" Naruto piped up from the back.

"We'll keep them in our sights, but we won't attack until sunrise."

"That's crazy. We can't afford to wait till then. What about Sasuke?"

"Yeah, he's right." Kiba interjected. "And besides, if we're going to hit them with a surprise attack, it's be an even bigger surprise if we hit them in the dark. "

"You guys don't get it, do you?" I asked. The gang was taken aback, having those as my first words since we set off after leaving Neji.

"Get what?" Naruto and Kiba asked at the same time.

I smiled at their sense of naive. "It's true; the darkness might give us an edge at the first cover of contact. But after that, it will only give us a disadvantage, right? Don't forget what we're really after. We want to keep them occupied just long enough to get Sasuke out of there. That will take decision and split second timing." I looked over to Shikamaru and saw him smiling. I gave a nod and he nodded back in acknowledgment. "We need to be able to see clearly, we can't risk going in blind wondering around in the dark. Once they knew what we we're up to, all they have to do is fall back and guard Sasuke's coffin. They could take up a defensive position and wait for us to come to them. The advantage would be all on their side."

Shikamaru picked up where I left off, "Of course, things would have been a lot different if we had Neji and his Byakugan with us too."

"Even so," Naruto enquired. "What about your eyes?" Naruto asked, looking towards me.

"My eyes are only good at picking up body heat, like a snake. Though it would be good in this situation, I can't just go in there all by myself. And I can't shout out directions all over the place, they'll catch on, so there would be no surprise. I still say we go in the morning."

"Aren't you forgetting about me and Akamaru and our sense of smell?" Kiba remarked, making Akamaru bark in agreement.

"We didn't forget about those sensitive noses of yours." Shikamaru continued. "Even so, in this part of the woods they've got the geography in their favor. Once more, what's the sense of attacking now? My Mind Jutsu is no help. The moonlights too dim and there's too many clouds passing over it for my Shadow Possession to be effective. It's a drag, but to be completely safe we've got to wait till daylight."

"I don't know," Kiba started.

"I agree," Naruto yelled, surprising all of us.

"What?"

"Shikamaru is our leader. And if he says we wait then we're gonna wait."

"I just hope I'm right," Shikamaru stated.

-_**IN THE MORNING**_-

The sun was shooting warm rays through the tree tops as morning set in. "Alright guys," Shikamaru said, "You know what to do."

"Right!" agreed the three of us as a bark resounded.

Kiba, Akamaru and I went to the left as Naruto and Shikamaru took the right. We all circled the two sound ninja and meet up in the middle of their path, making them stop.

Naruto was in the front with a kunai at hand, "Sorry, just us."

"Who needs those two," The two-headed one smirked, "When I can handle these guys myself." He then jumped at us.

"Get ready!" Naruto yelled.

We all got into a formation and braced for an impact. Naruto threw his kunai and just barely skimmed past the freak's head. Naruto made a quick shadow-clone as Kiba, Shikamaru and I lunged at the silver-haired man.

Naruto and his clone quickly made a rasengan as the man yelled out "Fist Barrage," while swinging his fists in a lightning fast speed. I felt a pain in my stomach that was quickly over shadowed by pain in my chest, then face. The man had stopped not only me, but Kiba and Shikamaru too. One last punch to my gut sent me flying backwards and away from everyone.

My back connected with a tree trunk before I slumped towards a branch not far below. My body felt bruised all over but I pushed those feelings aside, 'Not now,' I thought to myself, 'I have to fight. I'll tend to my wounds later.'

Slowly rising to my feet, I could feel my muscles protesting. I looked over just as Kiba used his Tunneling Fang on Naruto's clone and just barely missed the silver-haired man and head towards the red-headed girl. 'I knew I should have let Naruto use his shadow clone. God, I'm so stupid sometimes.'

I watched as the man and woman figured out our plan. The man yelled, "So what? Do you think that's gonna do you any good?" and jumped after Kiba as the woman was about to grab the coffin and move. Just then Shikamaru's Shadow Possession shot out and captured the woman's shadow, immobilizing her.

"What hit me?" the woman asked, looking towards Shikamaru with difficulty.

"It's called a Shadow Possession Jutsu," Shikamaru said from where he stood.

I could only watch as Kiba grabbed Sasuke's coffin from next to the woman and kept going.

The man yelled at the woman to move and get Kiba, not realizing that his comrade was immobile. Shikamaru stood up and took a step forward, making the woman do the same. "What are you doing?" The man yelled from his place in the air. "Get out of the way!"

Shikamaru released the Shadow Possession just as the man collided with the woman.

Kiba threw Sasuke's coffin at Naruto, urging him to catch. With a huff, Naruto caught the coffin, "Good work Kiba. OK, got it," Naruto said, just before taking off back from where we came.

"You heard him Shikamaru and Lynne." Kiba shouted, "Time to pull out."

"Don't worry, I'm coming," Shikamaru said as he headed towards Naruto and Kiba.

"Me too," I chimed, gathering my strength and ignoring the pain as I tried to catch up to the gang.

"Ha, just as I thought," Shikamaru smirked, "They left themselves wide open. Sometimes being so sure of your own strength can be a weak spot."

"Well, whatever," Naruto said. "It worked."

"It's about teamwork, Naruto," Shikamaru chided. "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If we just work together, nothing can stop us."

We continued to run with Sasuke in tow as the enemy followed close behind. "He's fast," stated Kiba.

We all chanced a look back and noticed that the two-headed man was gain on us and fast. I quickly heard a familiar bark coming from Akamaru as we passed him. "Akamaru! Once you set the bombs, get moving," yelled Kiba towards his companion. Akamaru barked back in confirmation. We stopped not far ahead to witness the man get caught in an explosion.

"Alright," Shikamaru praised.

"He fell for it!" yelled Naruto with excitement.

"Akamaru, nice work buddy," Kiba complimented. Akamaru barked at all of the comments he was receiving.

Unfortunately the explosion caused more than a few trees to catch fire and/or topple over. From out of the smoke came the man from before, only angrier now. "Don't you mess with me!" yelled the man as he came closer and closer to us with ever angry bound. Akamaru tripped as he went to flee which caused Kiba to yell. "That's the last time you'll bark at me, you mutt!" yelled the enraged man. Lifting his arm toward the dog, wires began shooting out and trapped the dog to the branch that he fell on. "You won't get away."

The paper bomb just in front of Akamaru began to burn. Kiba yelled a quick, "Hold on," as he headed towards his companion. The bomb exploded just a Kiba reached Akamaru.

"Kiba! Akamaru!" yelled Naruto.

"I can't see them," came Shikamaru.

"Hold on," I said as I formed the hand seals to my Dragon Eye Jutsu. With the jutsu I could easily make out Naruto and Shikamaru standing next to me. They showed up as red and orangish splotches, indicating their body heat. I then looked out towards the area now covered in smoke from the previous explosion. I watched as Kiba, Akamaru, and the man fell off a side of a cliff. '_When did that get there?_' I thought to myself.

"Damn it!" yelled Naruto. "What's happening? Where are they?"

"Don't worry, they're alive… for now," I half reassured them as I dropped my jutsu.

A yell coming from where we just came from drew all of our attention. "You're mine now!" It was the red-headed girl who was with the two-headed man earlier.

"Kiba and Akamaru are still gone," Naruto said.

"And we still have another one to deal with," came Shikamaru's reply. "There's no other way. I'll have to take care of this one. You take the coffin and carry on with the mission."

"Shikamaru-"

"Just get going."

All of a sudden the red-head stopped in her tracks. "What? What are you doing here?"

Just then a man jumped down on top of the coffin and flipped so that he was facing it before he kicked Sasuke's confinement away from us. He did all of this with such speed that we didn't even have time to react before he was already on another branch with the coffin.

The new man was dressed just like the other people we met who worked for Orochimaru. His hair was grayish white and he was crouched so that we couldn't see his face. He stood up and turned to face us. I immediately noticed the red rimmed eyes and the two red dots on his forehead.

"Sorry Naruto," Shikamaru apologized. "It looks like I missed calculated."

"Kimimaro," the red-head uttered. '_I guess that's the new man's name.'_

"You were taking too long, Tayuya," came the deep reply. '_His voice is almost as deep as Gaara's' _I thought with amazement. "And what of our comrades? What happened to our other three men? This from the former members of the sound ninja five."

"Why have you come back here?" asked the red-head now named Tayuya. "Your body is- by now your body should be-"

"My body is too devastated to move on its own anymore. I used the power of my mind."

"No way," exclaimed Tayuya. "Now you're cheating death?"

"I understand much more now," replied Kimimaro. "This strength of my life force has intensified since escaping the prison of human flesh." The man then rubbed the top of Sasuke's coffin in an affectionate way. "I've had a taste of lord Orochimaru's magnificent dream."

The mention of that bastard's name made me clench my fists to the point that blood began to well up and I had to hold back the urge to punch Kimimaro.

"Orochimaru," Naruto ground out with as much hate as I was feeling.

"This vessel," the man continued on, "is an important part of his dream. It has the flesh that lord Orochimaru desires. But you have taken too much time retrieving it."

'_Oh, great! Just what we needed. Another freak to deal with. "Flesh that Orochimaru desires," Yuck! It makes it sound like Orochimaru is a pedophile, which he probably is. And what the hell was all that about with 'his body'? This mission just got a whole lot creepier.'_

"Hey, jerk!" Naruto yelled. "I've had just about enough of this nonsense you're yapping about."

"Naruto-"

"I'm taking Sasuke back, NOW!" Naruto yelled, cutting off all of Shikamaru's protests. Naruto leaped towards the stranger as both Shikamaru and I reached for Naruto, be we were too late. Naruto was already heading toward Kimimaro.

The red-head leaped with such speed that she was able to get in Naruto's path and punch him in the face before he even came near the silver-haired man.

Naruto ended up falling towards the ground. Both Shikamaru and I ran towards him and Shikamaru caught him before he collided head-first into a tree branch below. I landed next to both of them and watched as the silver-haired man landed next to the red-head and began to whisper among themselves. A minute later the man jumped towards the coffin and left with it back in the direction we just ran from, leaving the red-head behind.

"He's taking Sasuke!" Naruto said in agony. "Not again! I've got to go and get him."

"Just calm down, Naruto," Shikamaru said calmly.

"How can I calm down?" Naruto yelled back. "We're losing him. He's gonna take Sasuke away from us."

I watched as the red-haired woman stood up from the branch she was crouched on. "You rodents!" the woman yelled as she pulled out a flute from her hip bag. "I'm gonna end this in a flash."

"Naruto, Lynne, listen to me," Shikamaru began. "I've got a plan, but you've got to follow it exactly. We're going to make her believe that we all are going to gang up on her and fight. But, in reality, I'm going to distract her with an attack as both of you run past her and go after Sasuke."

"But, what about you?" Naruto asked.

"I'll stay and fight her."

"What about me?" I asked. "I can stay and fight with you."

"No, that's not going to work. For one reason, this woman was afraid of the other man so he must be pretty strong. As strong as Naruto is, having two fighting against the enemy will make our chances of getting Sasuke back even better. And the second reason is that you are already hurt and staying here and fighting with me isn't the best choice for you right now. Do you understand where I'm getting at?"

"Wait. Hurt?" Naruto asked. "When didn't Lynne get hurt?"

"Back when we first retrieved Sasuke. Didn't you notice that she was the only one who actually got hit with that two-headed man's punches?"

"Oh… now that you mention it, I guess I did notice it. I guess I was just so excited about getting Sasuke back that I kind of pushed it to the back of my mind."

"Yes," I finally answered to end the conversation. "I understand."

"Alright, you guys got it?"

"Yeah," we both replied.

"Well, let's get on with it you wimps," Tayuya called from her perch.

Shikamaru pulled out a kunai, "its three on one, and we've got the advantage. If we gang up on her we've got a shot. What do you say guys?"

"Let's get her!" yelled Naruto.

"Yeah, I'm game," I smirked.

"Ha," the red-head laughed. "It doesn't matter how many of you there are, your still a bunch of worthless morons."

"Don't get cocky; we've got teamwork on our side."

"Even if we are a 'bunch of worthless morons,'" I mocked.

"We'll show you," Naruto called.

At the same time we all jumped into the air and all aimed an attack at the woman.

"Bring it on!" yelled Tayuya.

Shikamaru swung his hand with the kunai back and struck towards the woman who blocked it with her flute. "Now, Naruto! Lynne!" Shikamaru signaled for us.

"I'm gonna punch your lights out!" Naruto yelled. But both Naruto and I sailed over her head and landed on the other side, leaving a confused red-head and a smirking brunette behind us. "Huh, she fell for it. This plan is working." Naruto said to himself more than to me. Then, in a loud voice he called out to Tayuya as he slapped his butt, "I'll see you around!"

"Maybe we'll fight some day," I called over my shoulder. "That is, if Shikamaru lets you live through today."

Naruto then stuck his tongue out at her in a childish manner before we both ran off in Sasuke's direction. I looked over my shoulder to see how Shikamaru was fairing but he was already out of sight. I looked toward Naruto and noticed that the nine-tailed fox's chakra was leaking so that Naruto's eyes were red and his whiskers were more pronounced.


	12. A White Knight's Rage

Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, work for or with Naruto. Therefore, I do not own Naruto.

Enjoy!

**Chapter 12**

**A White Knight's Rage**

* * *

We just stood there, in a clearing, staring at Kimimaro. We had caught up to him and now he was the only thing that was stopping Naruto from just running to Sasuke's coffin. "Let's see? How should I destroy you two?" Kimimaro asked himself as a white pointy object slipped out of his hand.

An ominous wind came out of nowhere. I noticed Kimimaro's eyes widen slightly as he realized that Naruto was leaking some of his demonic chakra.

"Interesting," Kimimaro muttered to himself.

"Tell me what Orochimaru is planning to do and why the heck he is trying to get Sasuke so bad?" Naruto shouted at the white-haired man.

Kimimaro closed his eyes in contemplation as he answered, "Lord Orochimaru has already acquired the immortality jutsu. But a vast amount of time is required to obtain every jutsu and everything he wants in this world."

"So what?" Naruto yelled. "What does that have to do with Sasuke?"

"Just because he is immortal doesn't mean his body can maintain its self forever. So, before his flesh decays, a strong new body must be made into a vessel for his soul."

"Are you saying that he's going to use Sasuke's body?" Naruto yelled in pure anger.

Kimimaro moved so that he was standing in a fighting stance. "That's right, precisely."

"No, not Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, his demonic chakra fairing up. "I won't let you do it!"

"Naruto, what do you think you're doing?" I asked between clenching teeth. "You don't know how strong he is. For all you know, he could be the strongest ninja alive."

"I don't care how strong he is, I'm doing whatever it takes to get Sasuke back, and nothings' going to stop me." I looked over my shoulder to look at the blonde. I could see the determination set in his eyes.

"Alright, Naruto. I'm by you 100 percent." I flashed him a quick smile before turning back to the white-haired man.

"No, Lynne. Shikamaru was right. You are injured, badly," Naruto said in his do-not-argue voice. "You were limping the whole way here and even now you're having a hard time breathing. I want you to go over by those trees until I'm finished here. Only interfere if you believe that I'm in a life-or-death situation. Okay?"

"I'm not weak!" I yelled back.

"I know you're not weak, but I need you to be a strong as you can so that you can take Sasuke back if I don't make it or I can't do it myself. Please?" Naruto pleaded with puppy-dog eyes.

'_Damn eyes,'_ I thought to myself. "Fine, I'll do it. But I'll interfere when I feel as though you need my help."

"Thanks."

I walked with a slight limp towards the tree line and watched the fight.

"Alright, here I come!" Naruto lifted up his hands and made a sign. There was a loud 'puff' and smoke covered the whole field. Once the smoke died down there were almost a hundred Naruto clones everywhere.

The white-haired man looked around at all of the clones. "Oh," the man said with almost no emotion.

"You're not taking Sasuke anywhere!"

"There sure is a lot of garbage scattered around here," the white-haired man teased. "But, trash is just trash after all. It simply needs to be cleaned up."

"Shut your mouth!" Naruto growled, the red demonic chakra flaring throughout his body. Kimimaro took a step back and summoned another white stick from his cloak sleeve. "I'm gonna crush you!"

About 20 clones began to attack the white-haired man, but to no avail. Somehow the man fought off every one of the raging clone's attack. He made graceful movements- almost like a dance- and sliced or stabbed every clone that came after him. The man ended up in the center of the crowd, "Alright, I guess it is time to get serious. I'm ending this fight right now."

"You're full of it, huh? It's funny; you took the words right out of my mouth!"

The man then jumped into the air and began attacking all the clones with renewed energy. He sliced and cut away as the clones he hit popped into a cloud of smoke. A few clones threw a kunai each but the man jumped and the weapons ended up hitting two other clones. The man smirked as three more clones pulled out kunais and ran towards him.

Naruto sliced at Kimimaro but he deflected it with his own weapon. Kicking away the clone he bent down out of the way as another clone made to kick him. The third clone went to strike the white-haired man but he stabbed him before he could make a strike.

"Now, behold," Kimimaro said, preparing to strike, "The Willow's Dance." Another white pointed stick shot out of his hand as he ran toward a crowd of clones. '_Wait! That weapon, it's not just made of anything. It's made of his bone!'_ I thought as the man charged and instantly killed ten more clones in an instant. He then spun and killed another four more clones. When he landed he leaped into the air and killed seven more clones in mid-air with bones sticking out of almost all of his joints before landing back on the ground. "Now you know. This is my Kekkei Genkai."

His bones then began to sink back into his body with sickening cracking noises. He stood up tall and unzipped his shirt to show off a small tattoo on his chest of three lines in a triangular pattern. He slipped the shirt over his shoulder and made a bone stick out of the exposed skin. He then grabbed it and pulled it out of his shoulder.

A hissing noise came from the coffin and I watched as black smoke began to flow out of the cracks.

"It won't be long now," Kimimaro said, pointing his new weapon from his shoulder towards one of Naruto's clone who, in return, threw a few shuriken. The white-haired man easily blocked the attack with his bone-made sword. "It's no use. This is no ordinary bone. It's of the highest density, as hard as tempered steel."

"So what?" Naruto yelled. "I'm still going to break every bone in, or out, of your body."

"You think you know the limits of my powers, do you? I have five dances in my repertoire, you've only seen one."

"Yeah? Whatever."

"Alright, if that's what you want." Kimimaro sliced the air with his bone-sword. "Next I'll show you the Chameleon Dance. Come."

"What are you waiting for, bring it on!" Naruto yelled as all of his clones rushed into an attack. One of them threw lots of shuriken but Kimimaro sliced all of them in half. Instantly all of the clones stopped in their path.

Kimimaro pointed his sword at a clone. "I told you," he started his lecture. "This bone is denser than steel. Perhaps it would be better if you experience it firsthand." Just then all of the clones charged towards Kimimaro as he, too, ran at the clones. The white-haired man dodged every attack as he made the clones disappear one-by-one.

"Damn it," Naruto grounded out between clenched teeth.

"Behold," Kimimaro yelled as he ran at some more clones, "the Chameleon Dance." Then, in a series of graceful movements, Kimimaro killed off more clones with his sword. The clone's numbers were now dwindling in the teens.

"This is crazy!" Naruto yelled.

"No matter how many there are, the result will be the same!" Kimimaro yelled as he killed six more clones in a single swipe. The rest of the clones then charged at the white-haired man but they, too, burst into clouds of smoke. "And then there was one," Kimimaro bantered as he stood before the only Naruto figure left. "It's come at last. The moment I've been waiting for." Naruto gasped as the coffin holding Sasuke began to emit more black smoke, "The first step toward achieving lord Orochimaru's design."

The paper seals that were holding the coffin together broke apart just before the coffin itself blew up in a big flash that made me have to shield my eyes. Black smoke now covered the area where the coffin used to be. A lone figure stood in the middle of the carnage. '_Sasuke. But he looks so different. How can this be?'_

Sasuke's hair had become longer, more spiked, and took on a grayish tint. His skin took on a more purplish-gray tone. Then it all disappeared in a flash as soon as the smoke cleared, making Sasuke look just as he had been before.

"Sasuke…" Naruto gasped. After a few seconds of thinking Naruto broke out into a smirk and started to chuckle, "Hey Sasuke! What are you hanging out with these losers for?" Naruto waved at Sasuke from where he stood, "Come on buddy and let's go home!" Sasuke then began to chuckle. "Sasuke? Come on, let's- let's go home. Come on, everyone's there waiting for yah. Sasuke, Y-you hear me?"

Sasuke broke out into a full maniacal laugh that sent shivers down my back. '_I always knew there was something wrong with that kid.'_

"Talk to me!" Naruto yelled. "What is wrong with you? Have you gone deaf or something?" Sasuke jumped off, further away from the Leaf Village. "Hey, wait! Sasuke!"

I watched in horror as Kimimaro appeared behind Naruto in a flash, "It's no use," he said, "Now die." I started to run towards them but I knew I wouldn't make it in time. Kimimaro posed to strike but just at the last second Lee came out of nowhere and kicked Kimimaro in the gut, making him sail in the opposite direction of Naruto. The man stopped his fall with a flip and looked towards the green-clad ninja. "Who's this?"

"It is I," Lee said dramatically, which almost made me smile, despite the circumstances. "The rejuvenated Leaf Village's Handsome Devil. Rock Lee!" the bowl-cut haired boy yelled, posed in a stance to fight.

"Bushy brow?" Naruto gasped in surprise, "What- What about your injuries?"

"Do not worry about me, Naruto. Go get Sasuke."

"Huh? Really? Are you sure?"

"Go on, get going. Lynne and I can take care of things here. Right Lynne?"

"Yes, of course. Go Naruto, he's getting further away the longer you stay here and chat," I agreed as I, too, posed for a fight.

"Okay, just be careful, will yah? Both of you," Naruto asked in a worried voice. "He uses his own bones for weapons," Naruto quickly informed Lee.

"His own," Lee muttered to himself, "interesting."

"Watch yourself, this guy is beyond belief."

Lee gave Naruto a thumbs up sign, "Well, what are you waiting for? Go! The thumbs up, Naruto, remember? You gave it to Sakura when you made her a promise. Do not worry, we will finish this one. I promise."

Naruto nodded in confirmation as he went to leave for Sasuke.

"I don't think so," Kimimaro said from across the field. I quickly summoned my Dragon Sword as Kimimaro leaped into the air and went to strike Naruto in the back. Luckily for him, Lee got there just in time and stopped the bone-sword from piercing Naruto.

"I dislike being ignored," Lee said with anger laced into every word.

"It's true," I said from where I still stood, my sword pointed towards Kimimaro. "I ignored him once. Once. Never going to make that mistake again," I smirked.

Kimimaro watched as Naruto left the field to go after Sasuke.

"You cannot afford to be distracted," Lee yelled as he let go of the sword and leaned to the side so that the man was pulled off balance. Lee then spun in a circle, lifted his leg, and slammed it down onto the white-haired man's shoulder. Lee and Kimimaro then broke out into a series of flips and turns, each dodging the other's attacks until Lee made a connection with the palm of his hand and Kimimaro's chin. Both landed on their feet, facing each other. "The next one will be your last."

"Leaf Hurricane!" yelled Lee as he neared Kimimaro. The white-haired man dodged every kick that Lee sent his way with amazing grace for a guy. "Your agility is impressive, and you have the most singular style."

"Your style is too direct," Kimimaro commented back, "almost obvious." Lee charged at the man but he was too fast and dodged the attack. Lifting his sword, he posed to strike. "It's over!" I lunged forward to stop the attack but Lee beat me to it.

"Wait!" Amazingly, Kimimaro did stop. "I am so sorry, but I have to take my medicine at a certain time, and that time happens to be now. Excuse me; it will take just a minute." Lee dug into his hip bag until he pulled out a white bottle with a cork on top. "To be honest, I've never really liked medicine."

_'Who does?'_ I thought to myself.

**'I do,' **Ka Ryu rang in my head.

'_Oh great, you're here,'_ I thought sarcastically.

**_'_Why do you hate me so?'**Ka Ryu asked in a fake hurt tone.

'_It's not that I hate you, just that I hate the fact that you leave for a period of time then just return for no reason. Where do you even go?'_

**'Can't say, but I think you should watch the fight.'**

'_Whatever.'_

I looked toward where Lee and Kimimaro where. Apparently Lee had already consumed his medicine and was wobbling on his feet while giggling. "What are you staring at you stupid jerk!" Lee yelled at the white-haired man. "What-what- I- Stop moving." Lee continued to sprout gibberish while swaying on his feet.

'_Oh, no. Not again.'_

'**What? What's going on?'**

_'Lee. I think… I think Lee is drunk.'_

**'How can you tell?'**

_'It's almost like the last time in the bar.'_

**'Oh, sounds cool. What happened?'**

_'Long story short: he trashed the place and it took three highly trained ninjas to stop him.'_

**'Oh, that doesn't sound good. Well, maybe it sounds good to us, but not to whitey over there, haha.'**

_'Not funny. This is a serious problem. How am I going to stop him when he's done fighting Kimimaro?'_

**'Not my problem,'** Ka Ryu said as he continued to laugh inside my head.

_'Yes it is, so help me.'_

**'Fine, fine. You remember that story I use to tell you before you went to bed as a child?'**

_'Yeah. What about it?'_

**'It wasn't just a story. Use that stone to either stop your friend or kill the white-haired man. Either one is fine with me.'**

_'Are you sure it'll work?'_

**'Positive. Just remember to use your blood on it and use the 'rabbit, dog, dragon' hand signs in that order.'**

_'Thanks, Ka Ryu.'_

**'Whatever. You owe me. I want you to eat spicy curry tonight. I'm hungry for something with meat and spices.'**

_'Aw man, I hate spicy curry!'_

**'Oh well, it's either that or no jutsu.'**

_'FINE! I'll eat the fucking curry!'_

**'I knew you would.' **Ka Ryu laughs faded into the back of my mind.

I turned my attention back to the fight before me. Kimimaro had bones stick out of his forearms and ribs. Lee was already coming down from his drunken high to the point that he could actually run in a straight line again. But at the moment Lee's foot was stuck in a trap made of Kimimaro's rib cage.

"Your speed is impressive, but this is over now," Kimimaro said in a threatening tone.

I looked down at my Dragon Sword that was still in my hand. The red gem that was embedded in the hilt was gleaming at me, reminding me of the bedtime story Ka Ryu would tell me as a child.

_Once, hundreds of years ago, Ka Ryu was saved by a boy and repaid him by making a stone out of his tears. The boy grew into a power hungry man and used the stone for his own gain and used its magical properties for evil. He burned down villages and killed masses of people to become the ultimate ruler. _

_But then, 15 years later, a 14-year-old boy challenged the man to a duel. The boy was dress in a knight's armor and was perched on a white horse. He had long white hair and bright blue eyes. His skin was as smooth and pale as marble. His armor was so white that it sparkled in the sunlight. At his side was a gleaming black sword make of dragon scales that sent off a wave of power. _

_The man accepted the duel, thinking the boy was a fool and had a death wish. But, just as the man was about to make the killing strike to the boy's throat, the boy began to glow an unearthly pure white color. The man was blinded and backed off as the boy stood up and started to change. His hair became spiked and his eyes changed to a deep red, pupils becoming tight slits. His canines grew into fangs and his nails became claws. Dark chakra encased his entire body and formed into the shape of a dragon. The most dramatic change was the large, black, webbed wings that sprouted from his back. _

_The man was stunned and became rooted to his spot. The boy lifted his sword and struck down the man where he stood. What the man didn't know was that the boy was the current vessel for the very same dragon he saved 15 years prier: Ka Ryu. And Ka Ryu was not happy with the usage of the gift that the dragon had given the man. So he found a boy, bonded with him, and trained him to take back the gem so that nobody could use the gem's power for greed ever again. The boy placed the jewel into the butt of his sword so that nobody could use it except for those that carried Ka Ryu within them._

I blinked away the memories and struck the sword into the ground so that the gem gleamed at me. Remembering the instructions Ka Ryu had given me, I bit down on my thumb and allowed the blood to flow as I smeared a few drops onto the surface of the stone. Then I quickly made the hand seals that I was instructed to do as I allowed the power to seep into my bones. As if in a trance I shouted out the name of the jutsu that I had never heard of before.

"Dragon Style: White Knight's Rage!"

Instantly I felt as though my body was on fire. I let out a blood curtailing scream that made Kimimaro stop in his tracks. Lee looked over at me with worried-filled eyes. I could tell all of this was going on but I couldn't see much of anything past the vial of pain. My body was in such pain that all I cared about was trying to make it stop.

I clawed at my neck as I felt like there was white hot lava being poured down my throat. I choked on a scream as my eyes rolled into the back of my skull. When the first wave of pain was over I closed my eyes and blinked them back open. I could see that my entire body was covered in a dark cloak just like the boy in the story. My fingernails were longer, sharper and more curved like claws. I ran my tongue over my teeth and cut my pallet on my new fangs. I blinked my eyes one more time before everything I was seeing was now through the eyes of the Dragon Eye Jutsu.

A second wave of pain hit me that made me stumble to the ground in a crouched position. I felt as though my back was being ripped into two. I let out another scream as a ripping noise sounded when two giant wings tore from between my shoulder blades and through my skin and clothes. Thankfully my clothes stayed in tack throughout the whole ordeal.

When the pain had finally subsided I took a shaky breath and stood up. I looked at myself and realized that I had changed just like the white knight had. My hair had become spiked and I just knew the dark cloak of chakra was in the shape of a dragon.

I looked up towards the other two ninja on the field and noticed that they both were looking at me in amazement. "No," I said in a raspy voice from all the screams of pain. I pulled out my sword from the ground and pointed at the white-haired man. "I will not let you kill my friend!"

With that I propelled my wings so that I ran at Kimimaro with inhuman like speed and appeared behind him with my sword held high. He quickly propelled Lee into the air with his bones that were still trapped around Lee's foot. Just before my sword made contact with Kimimaro's shoulder he had shot out a bone so that it sliced into my arm. The pain from the cut didn't even register, but I did stop my attack. I pulled my arm from the bone and jumped back out of his attack range. I looked at my arm to assess the damage but the hole in my arm was already closing back up. I took a look over at Lee to make sure he was okay and noticed that there was another blob of body heat off in the line of bushes.

Lee must have noticed it too because he was looking in that direction. The new person must have been a friend because Lee wasn't making a move to stop him from getting closer. Taking one last look at Lee to make sure his body heat wasn't escaping –a sure sign that something was broken- I gripped my sword and set my sights back onto the white-haired man.

"You think that your bones are tough," I growled at the man as I lifted my sword to my face, "but can it stand up against my Dragon Sword? I wonder…" I asked in a sickly-sweet voice as I licked up the side of my sword, the edge cutting into my tongue and making it bleed. The pain from earlier almost made the cut seem like nothing.

Kimimaro pulled out another pointed bone from his hand and posed for a fight. "I told you twice already, my bones are denser than tempered steel."

"Yes, I heard that. But, you see," I smiled, letting the evil intent show through, "my sword isn't made of just any kind of medal. It was forged from the armored scales of a very powerful dragon."

"A dragon you say?" Kimimaro asked with slight amazement. "I just might want to test your theory."

With that said, Kimimaro and I lunged at each other with our weapons held high. There was a loud clinging noise as medal met bone. With quick and precise movements we sparred at close range until eventually my sword had cut off the tip of his bone sword and it went sailing until it landed, pointed-tip down, in the ground a few feet away. We both jumped back and posed for another spar.

"Your swordsmanship astounds me," the white-haired man praised. "Tell me, who taught you those moves?"

"No one you know," I bantered.

"You would be surprised by who I would know and who I might not know."

I smirked, "he goes by the name of Ka Ryu."

Kimimaro raised his eyebrows at me, "Ka Ryu, you say? Certainly you don't mean the dragon Ka Ryu?"

"The very same," I smirked wider, letting my fangs show. I didn't even give him time to register this new piece of information before making a hand sign and calling out a new jutsu. "Dragon Style: Dragon Wing's Gust of Wind!"

Beating my wings, giant gust of winds sliced through the air and started cutting anything it touched. Trees began to topple and fall once the winds had cut through their thick trunks. Kimimaro's skin started to peel a little but he had dodged the attack fast enough that there wasn't too much damage. When the winds had finally died down I looked at my opponent and noticed that the places where the skin had peeled were completely white underneath from where he had made the bone stop it from hurting the muscles.

Suddenly a pain shot through my side and wrapped around to my back. '_What's going on? I never even got hit.'_

'**It's the cloak. The longer you use it the more it'll hurt you,'** Ka Ryu explained from the inside of my head. **'I thought that the power from the cloak would be enough to stop him but I might have been wrong.'**

_'What will happen if I use it for too long?' _Worry crept into my subconscious voice.

**'Eventually the cloak will eat away at your skin and shut down all of your organs. Usually it wouldn't do that until after a good hour but seeing as this is your first time using it and you were already hurt, and add that to the chakra you spent and the time you already spent using the cloak, it's starting to go into the eating faze.'**

'_What are my options?'_

**'Either finish him now or drop the cloak.'**

_'What happens if I do neither?'_

**'You could die. But don't worry, I won't let you die. Once it starts to get to the dangerous stage I'll take over and break the jutsu for you. If that happens than you're going pass out for a few hours until your body heals itself. From there I'll make sure you're okay and protect you till help comes. Trust me.'**

_'I do. Thanks Ka Ryu,' _I thought as Ka Ryu disappeared somewhere in my head._ 'So I only have a few minutes left? Fuck!'_

I became aware of my surroundings and realized that my body must have been on autopilot while I was talking with Ka Ryu. Kimimaro and I were in the heat of a battle where he was throwing little bone missiles at me from his finger tips and I was dodging them with my sword.

"So, you're finally listening, are you?"

"Were you talking earlier? Sorry for that. I was talking to the voice in my head," I half joked. "What were you saying?" I asked as I dodged more missiles.

"I was just noting that you seem to be in pain." Kimimaro smiled as he leaped backwards and shot more bone parts at me.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, concealing my anger as I dodged to the side.

"That grimace of pain you just had before you went into a trance a moment ago," Kimimaro said in a tone that you would use to state that the sky was blue and not purple.

'_Now's my chance, I have to end this,'_ I thought as I dodged the last batch of missiles before propelling my wings again to jump into the air and float there. Banishing my sword I formed another hand sign and shouting out the same jutsu from before. "Dragon Style: Dragon Wing's Gust of Wind!"

This time I had more air and a wider range to hit him with. I also made sure that the stranger and Lee were behind me so that they didn't get hurt or caught in the jutsu. I flapped down my wings hard enough to ensure that some damage was done before continuing again. After the third flap a pain shot up through my shoulders and up and down my spine. My breath caught in my throat as it suddenly became hard to breathe.

I clutched at my neck as I began to fall from the air. Then, just as I was about to hit the ground, everything went black.

* * *

Okay, so i noticed that I didn't make an AN last chapter, or a disclaimer, but that was because I was so excited that I had actually updated and also my sister wanted back on the computer and she had only 'let' (to be honest I stole it from her when she got up to use the bathroom) to update that chapter. I hope your excited because since it's summer brake I will updating more often. Also, since I'm finally past the boring part I will be more willing to write. Unfortunatly, there are other stories and I have one that is hidden and nobody know about it except for RedEyedGirl100, but she only knows the concept, not teh plot or anything else.

See that button down there that says 'Review'? It's there for a reason. :D


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